The Raritan : notes on a river and a family

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1593356

REYNOLDS HISTORICAL
GENEALOGY COLLECTION

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 1833 01394 3011

THE RARITAN

O

NOTES ON A RIVER AND A FAMILY

BY

JOHN C. VAN DYKE

One of the Family

PRIVATELY PRINTED

KEW BRUNSWICK, N. J.

1915

1593356

To

C V, D. P.

WitK Much Lore

PREFACE

These notes have very slight historical or even genea-
logical interest. They mean nothing to the stranger.
They are put out for the use of the Family and are per-
haps more of a study in heredity than a bare recital of
family deeds, doings, and deaths. The younger gener-
ation may find in them a suggestion of many of their
own aspirations and inclinations ; and when they have
about run their race they may be interested in looking
backward to see how their forefathers ran the race be-
fore them. It is with this thought, this hope, that I
I have prepared these notes telling of the generations
that have preceded us in America. The volume is
printed : not published. It is a private affair and calls
for no public attention or recognition.

J. C. V. D.
New Brunswick, N. J.
December, 1915.

CONTENTS.

I. The River 5

II. Thomas Janse the First: 1580?-1665? 13

' III. Jan the Second : 1605-1673 21

IV. Jan the Third : 1652?-1736 30

V. Jan the Fourth : 1682-1764 3S

VI. Jan the Fifth: 1709-1778 46

VII. Abraham the Sixth : 1753-1804 56

VIII. Abraham the Seventh : 1776-1854 65

IX. John the Eighth : 1807-1878 74

X. The Ninth and the Tenth S3

Geneological Chart 90

CHAPTER I
The River

There is a River running eastward to the sea — a
gentle little River of still waters that reflect, and shal-
low rapids that run in lines of amethyst, and slow-
moving tides that flood and ebb without a ripple and
without a sound. It is only a commonplace River — so
commonplace that the millions who rattle over its rail-
way bridges in express trains hardly put down their
newspapers to look at it. Its history is purely local
and it never was grand enough for romance. No one
has written it down in deathless verse or painted it on
immortal canvas. Art, science, history, philosophy
have all passed it by. In fact, it has been left quite
alone save for the life and the love of the people who
have lived by its banks and watched it through the
years slowly drifting to the sea.

For much of its course the River flows through a
low slightly-undulating country. Off in the northwest
there is a range of blue hills where the stream takes its
head. It comes to life, runs its course, and passes out
to the sea before a hundred miles are counted. No
stately reach of thousands as the Mississippi ; no lake-
like breadth of surface as the Saguenay or the lower
Danube. The great streams go down to the ocean
through broad basins and their shining silver faces may

[5]

6 THE RAR1TAN.

be seen from the hill-tops miles away; but this River
winds through a flattened valley and you are upon it
almost before you see it. At times it cuts through
bluffs and hills, then flows past low-lying meadows, and
then again beneath bordering fringes of willows, elms,
maples and sycamores. The upland ridges back from
the meadows that make up the valley borders are not
more than a hundred feet in height. They are dotted
with houses and huge barns; and around these, back
from them, are fields of grain and corn, orchards of
peach and apple, small forests of oak and hickory. The
meadows are spotted with bushes, flowers and tall
grasses. Cattle in herds and sheep in droves graze there
or stamp away the heated noon under the shade of
huge oaks. All summer long the meadows keep
shifting their flower garmenting. At first they are
yellow and white with dandelions, star flowers, butter-
cups and daisies, then silver with Indian grass or red
with the tassel of sheep sorrel ; finally they turn yellow
again with golden rod or purple with masses of asters.
Spots of wonderful charm are the river's meadows.
You walk there on warm summer afternoons and lose
yourself in nature's glorification of the commonplace.

As "the stream flattens down to meet the sea its
meadows flatten, too, and turn into marshes waving
with flag and rush and cat-tail. These, as the seasons
come and go, turn green, turn yellow, turn sere and
grey. The coot and the rail, with the red-winged black-
bird, nest there, and in the autumn flocks of wild fowl
dip down to its lakes and run-ways, and great droves
of reed birds swarm like bees above the nodding rushes.

THE RIVER. 7

Flat as the still sea the tops of the rushes stretch out
for miles, glittering in the sun — a huge monotone not
the less beautiful because despised and neglected by
man. Very beautiful are the marshes to those who
have lived beside them and, through many years, have
known the charm of their repose.

Perhaps repose is the secret of the River's attrac-
tion, also. The lines of the uplands, the banks, the
meadows, the water, all lie easily and quietly, and in
their horizontal repetitions create the feeling of rest.
There are no abrupt broken lines, no perpendicular
breaks in the scheme. Nothing jars or startles or utters
a discordant note. You drift to the sea by the flat lines
of the bordering uplands as readily as by the lines of
the stream, and the scene levels out as effectively on
the marshes as on the quiet waters of the Lower Bay.
The flat lands with their high sky and restful horizon
ring have always been the liveable and the loveable
lands wherever located.

Far up the River, near the foot of the blue hills.
there is a more abrupt and perhaps a more picturesque
setting for the stream. It breaks through cloves and
steep valleys, winds under abrupt cliffs, and falls down
steps of shale in moderate little cascades. But it never
is, at any time, a brawling mountain stream with a
bowlder bed and plunging, roaring falls. There is a
sound of rapid running water, occasionally a little
churning and gurgling ; but usually only the plaintive
soothing murmur of a stream that is quietly running
away to the sea. The steep banks of shale with their
mosses, lichens, flowers, stunted cedars and trailing

g THE RARITAN.

vines are quite as picturesque as those found elsewhere.
Moreover, the trees grow thick here in spaces and the
meadows entirely disappear in favor of side hills and
farm uplands. It is a wilder country than down below,
more stimulating, less restful- perhaps, but farther
from the crowd, nearer to the pure fountain head of
nature in the hills.

Up in these hills the River starts out, like all youth,
with purity, alacrity and considerable noise. For some
miles the stream runs clear and swift through wood
and valley, then is caught in mill ponds, where it stag-
nates, then falls over now neglected dams into beds
of stone, and once more runs on through underbrush
and willows. All its contributing streams, in degree,
do likewise. But the South Branch and the Millstone
quite change its character and give it a different look.
Draining many mil s of farm lands they, naturally,
carry to the main stream their burdens of red shale and
silt, and, after rains, the whole River turns almost as
red as the Colorado. When the side streams are all in,
when the broadened River passes Bound Brook, the
drainage from town and factory begins to pollute the
stream. Yet still it clears itself somewhat and goes
over the Five Mile Dam with a transparent gleam and
a low roar to be heard half a mile away. At the Land-
ing it meets the in-pushing tide. The tide still wells
up to the Rapids and stops there just as it has always
done. Then with the ebb the whole volume goes slowly
down under the Great Bridge, down past the city of
New Brunswick, the bluffs of pine and the long
stretches of marsh, down past the noisy South Amboy,

THE RIVER. 9

out upon Raritan Bay, and so, by the Sandy Hook to
the wind-tossed ocean.

From the mountains to the sea the River loses in
life, vivacity of movement, purity of color ; but it gains
in volume, in depth, in restfulness. The lower reaches
of the stream stretch out in width and lie still. The
water is jade-colored but that does not perceptibly mar
its reflections. The morning sun shows here in flashes
of silver almost as brightly as on a mountain lake, and
the afternoon light streams down the valley, glances
from the River's surface, and strikes the arches of the
Great Bridge in flashes of gold. The whole valley is
flooded with light at sunset — that warm mellow light
that gilds the most barren landscape and for the
moment turns it into fairyland. The sun is scarcely
gone before the moon is up, and the moonlight and the
twilight, fighting not for mastery but blending softly
with each other, make the lover's light of early evening.
The River responds in tones of old rose and silver, be-
comes opaline and amethystine, and finally shades off
into a night purple. The angels' pathway of the moon
weaves and ravels on the stream, the stars come forth
and shine upon its surface, the night wind steals softly
along the sedges and the rushes. The stream seems
like the Golden River in Elfland.

Not always thus the mood of nature on the River.
Storms from the land come down with rushing winds
and peals of thunder, storms from the sea drive in with
clouds of rain and whistling voices. The River turns
leaden grey, rises in leaden waves with crests of white,
drives with the wind in shivering sheets or is pounded

10 THE RARITAN.

and pitted with falling rain. The meadow grasses, the
willows, the elms, even the sturdy oaks, fling out tossed
blanches on the wind. The black smoke from factor-
ies, the white wings of sea gulls, the grey of rain, the
flying scud of clouds all go by one with a rush and are
swallowed up in the storm-mist. Blown by the eastern
gales the sea waters heap up in the Lower Bay, and
the tide comes in with unusual volume and push. It
rises over the banks, floods over the marshes and
meadows, and creeps up along the foot of the bordering
slopes. Down to meet it comes the red River swollen
by rains and muddy with earth sediments. A freshet
results, and all the valley world seems for a time afloat,
adrift, inundated. Thus for a day and a night, and
then the waters ebb away and go down to the sea, the
meadows dry out, the bushes and grasses shake them-
selves free and grow the faster for their muddy bath.

The great storms come in the winter and with them
sometimes clouds of snow that turn the River into a
dark flashing purple winding through a world of white.
The marshes and the meadows, the uplands and the
fields are all robed in white. The bare limbs of the
elms, the wine-red leaves of the oaks, the dark green
of the cedars lift above the snow mantle and answer
the purple of the River. Gradually the River chokes
with floating ice, freezes over, and is covered with
newly-fallen snow. Then come the stillness of the
winter cold, the glitter of the snow, the clearness of
the air, the brilliancy of the stars. The River and its
valley seem sleeping, hibernating under the blanket of
snow. There seems no life. But beauty still remains.

THE RIVER. 11

The glorious light, the delicate hues of the snow, the
blue and purple shadows, the great harmony of the
white with the blue of the sky are not merely attractive
by contrast with the summer garmenting ; they are
beautiful in themselves and for themselves. Huge
towering peaks of mountains are not absolutely neces-
sary to the beauty of the snow landscape. Here in the
River's basin — this flat low-lying basin of the common-
place— the beauty of winter is abundantly obvious to
those who will but see.

Is it necessary to insist in this liberal inquiring age
that beauty does not lie exclusively in romantic haunts
or classic climes or spectacular display in any place?
Are not all the arts nowadays insisting upon the beauty
of the commonplace, the character of humble things,
the dignity of simple truth? The materials that lie at
your doorstep are beautiful if you are sensitive enough
in impression, broad enough in comprehension, pro-
found enough in sympathy to understand them.

"The meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Why not then this unpretentious River with its
humble valley? Have we grown so far away from
nature that the meadow daisy^has become merely a
mean flower, the water-mirror merely a cheap reflection
of a dull original, and the fair white clouds of summer
merely a pestilential congregation of vapors? There
is something in the ordinary that becomes extraordinary
under continued observation; and there is that in the
commonplace that has for us an uncommon meaning if

12 THE RARITAN.

we look at it aright. We would not alway be dinned
and stunned with the startling. That which is liveable
finally becomes loveable. We cannot live with that
which merely startles or overawes.

But the River was not always so commonplace.
There was a time, and not three hundred years ago,
when it was unique and was thought a wild, wild
stream. No one had been to its head ; no one knew
how far it traveled. It was then a deeper stream with
waters undimmed by the surface drainage from farms.
There were no farms. The small open spaces on the
meadows were planted with Indian maize; but all
the rest of the land was forest. Huge pines grew along
the shale cliffs ; oak and chestnut and hickory grew on
the uplands. There were no towns or bridges or rail-
ways or wagon roads. Indian trails ran across the land
from river to river, Indian teepees were pitched under
the great trees in the meadows, and Indian canoes
glanced along the surface of the River. The white man
had not yet come, the land was unflayed, the forest
and the stream were in their pristine beauty. And
then .

CHAPTER II

Thomas Janse the First

1580?— 1665?

Such was the River when Thomas Janse the Immi-
grant came over to live on the neighboring shore of
Long Island. He had sailed out from Amsterdam in
one of the high-pooped ships of the Half Moon class —
perhaps the first far-adventurer in the Family for sev-
eral centuries. Apparently he had not liked the great
city of Amsterdam, though it was then in its blooming
time. Jan de Witt was in power and Holland with its
India companies was the commercial center of the
world. The burghers were making money and spend-
ing, it lavishly in beautifying the new cities of their
sea-won land. It was the time of the inflated Vondel
and the merely popular Cats ; but it was also the golden
age of Hals, Rembrandt, Terborch, Jan Steen and Ver-
meer of Delft. On sea and land, in war, commerce,
learning, art; in politics, liberty and religious toler-
ance, Holland was in the lead. Why did Thomas Janse,
then an old man, wish to leave it? What was the im-
pelling motive for crossing a stormy ocean to take up
life in an unknown unexplored land?

The Family was not originally of city extraction. Its
early members had lived out by the dykes and had
taken a name from them. Up in the northland, behind

[13]

14 THE RARITAN.

the shelter of the great dunes, with the sound of the
sea in their ears, they had fought stubborn circum-
stances successfully, had grown resourceful and self-
sufficient. Shut in by the sea in front and the forest
behind, what had they to fear from men or their meas-
ures, from invaders or governments? In those early
days the highways of the Netherlands were very limited
and sea travel along the coast was considered danger-
ous. An enemy could not very well get at the dyke
dwellers. And if by any chance he got across the net-
work of canals and morasses there was always a final
resource in the sea. The dykes could be cut and the
water let in — the remorseless North Sea that had
drowned so many from hither and yon.

It was a dangerous land for the stranger and not too
secure even for the native. The footing was treacher-
ous and every few years the sea was breaking in,
without invitation, in vast inundations. The north
lands were at best only the deposit of the Rhine and the
Yssel, formed first as lagoons and afterward gathering
sands, growing grass and trees and making a sea bar-
rier in the form of dunes. The sea was always a
menace, always creeping in by bays and creeks, always
stirring up hurricane winds, always breeding fogs that
blinded the keenest eyes of the navigators. Perhaps
the very adversities and dangers of the country made
the dwellers near the dykes a strong, an independent,
a free people.

And, perhaps again, they loved their north country
for its very wildness. The Hercynian Forest, lying
back of them, even so late as the sixteenth century, was

THOMAS JANSE THE FIRST. 15

trailed by droves of wild horses, and following the
droves, preying upon the young colts, were packs of
wolves. Forests belted the whole country — vast woods
that only the boar hunters penetrated. The dunes
looked out upon a yellow sea almost always churned
tc white caps by tempests, great flocks of water fowl
came and went on the whistling winds, the few fisher-
folk gathered in huts along the shallow harbor en-
trances and struggled against winds and driving sands.
On the polders there were low crouching cottages or
farm houses, surrounded and protected by bushes and
trees, that again fought off the winds, the sands, and
the rains. The struggle for existence was apparent
wherever one chose to turn. It was a lonely struggle,
too. The farm houses stood aloof from one another.
There were no towns. Xo travelers came that way.
The northland was an isolated and a somewhat weird
country, then.

It is not strange that such a mournful and misty
landscape should, after generations, finally leave its
stamp upon the people living there. The milieu has its
effect. The grey light will finally produce the grey
people and cast them in a grey mood. The dyke dwell-
ers early became a sad and serious people who believed
in God in the world and they a part of it. Their trials
were many and their joys were few. The village boors
might drink and carouse in taverns, but not the north-
ern outliers. They toiled and prayed and slept and
toiled again ; and, in measure, were content. A certain
savage satisfaction came to them in their aloofness —
a feeling of freedom and independence. No man

16 THE RARITAN.

called them slave. To the south of them the political
struggles and wars went on generations without end.
The quarrels of the Houses of the Hainault and Bur-
gundy, the Austro-Spanish tyranny, the dominion of
Charles V., the Reformation, the wars of Alva, the
long fight of the House of Orange succeeded one an-
other ; but perhaps they meant little or nothing to the
northern dyke dwellers. The struggles shook the
towns and cities to their centers and cast the citizens in
the heroic mould of defiance, but the tremor died out
al the north and was lost in the roar of the winds and
the surge of the sea. Serene in their grey land, the
grey people read their Bible, earned their bread by the
sweat of their brows, and went their way to the shades
without murmuring. Ambition had not crept into their
catechism and the wish to dominate or rule others was
not in their mood. God had not given them a Garden
of Eden to live in ; but a stormy wind-swept sea-bat-
tered lowland. Yet they had made it their own and
grown so used to its buffetings and surprises that it
pleased rather than repelled them. They were not
willing to exchange it for other and perhaps fairer
lands with a serpent in the garden.

Yet there came at last a new generation that grew
uneasy in the north country. It had heard of cities and
men and marching troops, of seas and far countries
visited by the ships of the India Companies. A great
new world lay beyond the dykes and the pounding seas.
Even the Netherlands themselves had been a vast un-
known to the home dwellers at the north. So at last one
of the Jans would go down to Amsterdam to see the

THOMAS JANSE THE FIRST. \7

world and seek his fortune. There, perhaps, he came
to know the shipping people, made money, held offices,
and finally died a well-to-do burgher. Who knows?
Perhaps the people who remained behind at the north
heard of his success, talked much of him, were proud
of him; but possibly the weary burgher himself often
turned his face to the north and sighed for the sea, the
dune country, and the dark forests. When one is born
to the wilderness and has the love of the wTild in his
blood the inclination is very difficult to eradicate.

And the tendency — the fancy for the open country —
will crop out in succeeding generations. How many
of the children of the first burgher lived in Amsterdam
is not known ; nor is there now any record of the other
members of the family that stayed on at the north.
Probably there are descendants of the dyke-dwellers
still living there by the sea — living the same life as the
ancestors in the days of the Counts of Holland. As
for the Amsterdam branch, there soon came a break
in the order. He whom the records name Thomas
Janse put out to sea for the new land of America. Had
he grown tired of city life in Amsterdam? Had he
wearied of people and small ambitions, and the petty
scramble for place and prominence? Perhaps for years
he had known nostalgia — the longing for the home by
the dykes — but hardly dared to go back to the ances-
tral roof for fear of the sardonic smile that usually
greets the prodigal. But a new world had been discov-
ered in the golden west and Thomas Janse would see it.
And so finally, seeking the unknown, he cut all the
bonds of kin and country and put to sea.

18 THE RARITAN.

It required something of a stout heart to cross the
ocean in a Dutch ship in the year 1652. There were
not only unknown clangers at the end of the journey,
but perils of the sea en route. Navigation on the North
Atlantic was in its infancy, and the ship captains
steered more by faith and the setting sun than by chart
and compass. The voyage was a matter of weeks,
and if the western gales were blowing it might be
months. Beating up against head winds in the Roaring
Forties was somewhat different from a fishing cruise
in the North Sea. Besides, Thomas Janse sailed with
his wife, Sytie Dirks and a large family. Here were
hostages not only given to fortune but practically hung
around the Immigrant's neck. He was their mainstay,
and probably Thomas Janse himself, for lack of better,
used his fellow immigrants as some sort of sheet
anchor. They encouraged one another and took no
counsel of despair. Courage sailed with all the west-
bound Dutch sloops in those days and sooner or later
they all dropped anchors in the sheltered bays of the
new world.

When the Immigrant came up to the harbor of New
Amsterdam and the ship swung off the Strand (Pearl
street) there was a very modest little village before
him. The Fort and the great square kerk within it
were its most prominent features. There were rows of
houses along the Strand and on the Heere Straat, with
a few elsewhere, all of them somewhat like the houses
in old Amsterdam ; and wooden landings along the
shore perhaps unlike anything the Immigrant had ever
seen before. There were ships at anchor and people

THOMAS JANSE THE FIRST. 19

in pot hats and bag trowsers moved along the docks
and streets. Everything looked very tentative about
the town and very new elsewhere. Even the waters,
the sky, the air, the very sun looked new. There was
a brilliancy to the light, a clearness to the
air and waters that the Immigrant had never known
before. And the great shores and banks, lifting high
with primeval forests, were overwhelming fastnesses
to him. It was, indeed, a new world and held all the
mystery of the unknown.

It seems that the Immigrant did not stay for long in
the new town of New Amsterdam, but moved over to
the town on the heights called Brueckelen (Brooklyn).
There he and Sytie his wife are duly recorded in 1661
as members of the First Reformed Dutch Church ; and
there they lived and died. Thomas Janse had been
adventurous enough in putting out to sea, and in his
old age he probably felt little like pursuing further
adventure into the wilderness. He doubtless knew and
heard much talk of the River and the unknown land
lying beyond it, but had he ever seen it? His son, Jan
the Second, had gone down to New Utrecht to live, and
perhaps with him he had gone across to the mouth of
the River and had seen something of its lower waters ;
but there is no record of this. In those early days
about the only family records were in the family
Bibles and were merely births, marriage and deaths.
The rest was silence. People worked and prayed and
aspired then as now, but their doings were not flung
abroad in the morning's newspaper. They were con-
tent to do their duty and go their ways to the grave as

20 THE RARITAX.

the generations before them had done. It was only
with a later and a more conscious race that the thought
of "being somebody" became an obsession. The fore-
fathers never had it.

There seems no record of the Immigrants's death or
that of his wife. The church buildings have disap-
peared and with them most of the church books and
documents. The burying grounds have disappeared
likewise, and no one now knows where he and his wife
were buried. One might hazard the guess that the
place of their burial now lies under the paving stones
or the sky-scrapers of Brooklyn, and not be far from
the truth. Nothing lasts for long in America — not even
the graves.

CHAPTER III
Jan the Second
1605—1673
Jan, the son of Thomas Janse, came over the ocean
in the same high-pooped Dutch ship as his father.
Doubtless he was the elder's adviser and was instru-
mental in inducing him to quit Holland, even in the
evening of life, that he might see and know the new
land of which the West India Company made such
unique report. Jan brought with him his wife,
Tryntje, and seven children — more hostages to frighten
the ordinary immigrant into staying at home. But Jan,
like his father, was stout-hearted and not easily dis-
mayed. He had been born and had grown up in
Amsterdam, in that prosperous blooming time of the
Dutch, of which mention has been made. Famous
men were in the saddle and careers were almost to be
had for the asking. Politics, law, letters, art, were
holding out garlands and wreaths, and commerce was
offering golden rewards. Why did not Jan go in for
a career? Rembrandt came up to Amsterdam from his
father's mill ; but Jan was already there before him.
Why did he not become the famous painter? Why
was he not an Admiral Tromp, an Erasmus or a
Grotius? Did he think with his fathers that ambition
was merely a vulgar phase of human conceit? Did he

[211

22 THE RARITAN.

believe that those served best who declaimed the least,
and that the lowly places were as necessary to fill,
and quite as honorable, as the loftier?

It is probable that Jan was a true son of the dykes
and though he was born and reared in Amsterdam the
sea and the wind of the north country were in his blood.
Let dukes and princes and staats-generals quarrel over
who should rule; but Jan wished neither to command
nor be commanded. He wished the freedom of his
ancestors in the dune country — a freedom to live and
let live without interference of any kind. Under God's
sky and by His sea, far from the crowd, alone with
nature, kings in their own right and rulers by their own
might — that had been the creed of the ancestors. And
Jan in Amsterdam, for all the false gods about him and
those who would proselyte him to other faiths, could
never forget that creed. Did it grow upon him with
the years until he finally whispered to the elder,
Thomas Janse, the project of a venture across seas?
Were there friends in the West India Company who
were glad to repeat the wonderful tales of the country
round about Xew Amsterdam ? Perhaps Jan had been
associated with them and had made money through
them. Again, who knows? Such things were quite
within the possibilities.

At any rate Jan sailed, and with him went parents
and children — three generations. He must have put
money in his purse, as well as courage in his heart,
for shortly after he arrived at New Amsterdam he
went to New Utrecht, where he was one of the
founders of the town, bought a farm or "bouwerie"

JAN THE SECOND. 23

of fifty acres, and also owned extensive lands running
down toward Coneyn Eylandt (Coney Island). The
Dutch were always thrifty and while they never
thought in terms of millions and never cared to give
up their lives to mere gain, they were very close hold-
ers of the guilder and always had sufficient store
against rainy days. Jan the Second was not foolish
enough to venture across the ocean and throw himself
and family on the mercy of an unknown country and
a West India Company. He had not lived in Amster-
dam the greater part of his life without knowledge and
profit.

But evidently he had no notion of locating in New
Amsterdam. Was it already too settled, too" civilized,
for him? There were small quarrels for place and
power going on there, and disputes about rights and
privileges, into which he did not care to enter. He
wanted to be by himself, and free from domination or
restraint. Besides, down near the Lower Bay his acres
reached to the water. The sea was not far off. He
perhaps liked the sound of the waters and the smell of
the salt air. With the sands, the winds and the fogs
they brought back memories of his native land. Then,
too, the Dutch were always great fowlers ; and in the
spring and autumn the bay in front of Jan's house
swarmed with wild swan, geese and ducks. Doubtless
the Dutch swivel flint-lock did great havoc among
the flocks, and was brought to bear with some effect on
the deer that ate cabbages in the back patch, the tur-
keys, partridges and pigeons that enlivened the woods,
and the rabbits that thronged Coneyn Eylandt. The

24 THE RAMI TAN.

first settlers had thought the rabbits were conies and
had named the island because of them.

With his hunting proclivities Jan the Second must
have known the River. Its mouth was just around
the lower end of Staaten Eylandt (Stat en Island),
above the mouth great marshes expanded, and there
the hunting and trapping were better than elsewhere.
The beaver and the mink that the Indians brought
in and traded for cheap goods in New Amsterdam
were trapped thereabouts ; and the Dutch took very
kindly to both hunting and trapping. The River had
then been explored somewhat. People had gone across
to the Delaware and up beyond Middelbrook (Bound
Brook). • Perhaps Jan himself had seen and known the
upper country. It was in course of settlement but the
banks of pine, the meadows with oaks and chestnuts,
the shale cliffs with their moss and cedars were as yet
untouched. The land had not been ribbed by the plow
nor the timber gnawed by fire and axe, nor the water
polluted by surface drainage. The Naraticongs lived
along the River and planted maize in the open spaces ;
but they worked no more destruction than the deer and
the bear in the forests. When the white man finally
took hold it was quite another story.

But whatever Jan the Second's knowledge or pos-
sible longings for the new country with its wildness,
he found himself not altogether a free agent as regards
action. He had duties to the colony on Long Island,
as well as to his family, that called for fulfillment.
Shortly after he went to New Utrecht, in 1657, the
Governor and Council of New Amsterdam issued a

JAN THE SECOND. 25

proclamation to the inhabitants of the town "to keep
good watch"; that they had appointed Jan the Second
sergeant of the town, and the people were "to acknowl-
edge and obey" him. Doubtless the office carried with
it the duties of burgomaster or mayor, and meant
responsibility. Jan was never free from it. For many
years he was a magistrate of New Utrecht, and the last
appointment that came to him of which there is record
was that of "schepen" — an office somewhat like our
present alderman at large.

None of the offices were what might be called great,
but they were the best that the town and the time had
to give, and Jan took them seriously. He was one of
the town leaders, probably dressed like a burgher, and
doubtless lived in a house with a stepped-front gable
and a high stoop where the family sat on summer even-
ings. The house was likely, after the model of the
period, of brick with long low roof lines, windows with
great wooden shutters and black painted hinges, and
huge doors or half-doors. All the interiors at that
time were simple but commodious. The open stone
fireplace of the kitchen, about which the family
gathered at night, was the center of interest. It was
usually faced with blue tiles telling in their pictured
subjects scriptural stories. There were hook irons,
andirons, tongs, shovels, warming pans, pots of brass,
spiders, Dutch ovens for baking — all the paraphernalia
of cooking — hanging about. Silver, pewter, china were
on the dressers, the floors were scrubbed and sanded,
a wooden wainscotting ran about the room and at the
floor was often a surbase of tiling. All the chairs

26 THE RARITAN.

were straight-backed, leather covered and brass-nailed ;
all the tables and cupboards were plain but of good
well-rubbed wood, and kept scrupulously clean. The
family kept the house for use, and cleanliness was
always with the Dutch akin to godliness.

Upstairs the same order and cleanliness prevailed.
The great beds were built into the wall and were
smothered with quilts and curtains. There were no
closets then., but in their place cupboards with balled
feet, and the kas or huge chest, in which the linen was
kept or the numerous wadded and quilted petticoats
of the women. Trundle beds for the children, more
straight-backed chairs, floor rugs, warming pans, and
a miscellaneous aggregation of what the Dutch called
boedel made up the furnishing. Overhead in the gar-
ret was the store room and junk shop, where discarded
articles were flung across the great hewn beams of
oak and where the children used to play on wet days
when the rain was pattering on the roof.

It was probably a well-furnished, well-ordered house
in which Jan the Second passed his days, and doubt-
less, in his capacity of magistrate, he found it worth
while to keep in a conspicuous place on the wall his
ancestral coat-of-arms— a silver shield with three
golden stars surrounded by oak leaves and, at the top,
a helmet and a fourth star of gold.' He probably knew
little about the meaning of the coat-of-arms and pos-
sibly cared less. It was one of the trappings brought
over from the old country and perhaps had something
to do with inspiring respect in the new— especially tor
who was an officer of the law. The colony had

one

JAN THE SECOND. 27

as yet no strong leanings either toward democracy or
aristocracy. It was only a colony and followed the
lead of Amsterdam.

And within the colony the social life was not very
different from what ruled in Holland. Jan the Second
had eight sons and three daughters, and however sober-
minded and industrious they may have been, it is not
believable that they devoted their whole energies to the
farms and the household. Ten of them married, and
that of itself implies much social gaiety under the
paternal roof. Humanity the world over, in all ages,
is much the same, and those who went out to the
colonies in the early days were not precisely marooned
of joy. They had their frolics and feastings, their
courtships and marriages as other people. In the spring
and summer there were banquets on the green with
dancing for the young folks and bowling, feasting,
smoking for the elders, pleasure parties in wagons and
boats, picnics, sports and many games. The feast of
St. Nicholas, New Year's Day, or a family wedding
(celebrated at the house, not at the church) were gala
days when game, poultry, fish, rolliches, head-cheese,
with pancakes, waffles, cookies, doughnuts and fruit
were consumed in quantity to the accompaniment of
cider, beer and heady rum. They were great occasions,
and all the family finery, all the silver, pewter and
brass, all the cookery and brewery of which the house
was capable were in evidence.

The Dutch were ever a serious people, but old, as
well as young, knew how to unbend and give way to
the mirth of the hour. Jan the Second, with all his

28 THE RARITAN.

magisterial and aldermanic gravity, and despite the
helmet and golden stars of his crest, probably led the
dance with the bride or boisterously gave out the pres-
ents on the day of merry St. Nicholas. With duties,
cares and pleasures he probably never had much time
tc think of the old country and cast up regrets that he
was never to see it again. The new life was easy and
full of sunshine, and when he came to give it up it was
perhaps with regret. To those of sound mind and body
the joy of living never diminishes.

He passed out shortly after 1673 and was buried
there in the village which he had helped to found.
There was no church building erected in New Utrecht
before 1700, so he was not buried in the church but in
a local burying ground. Probably above the grave was
placed the common brown-stone slab with a rudely
carved cherub head at the top and down below the
lettering :

"Hier leyt begraven het lighaam van
Jan Thomaszoon van Dijk"

with the dates of birth and death. All the slabs have
long since crumbled away and the burying ground has
ceased to exist. Long Island was the stamping ground
of armies during the Revolution and even its ruins
have perished.

Jan the Second's heirs sold his first farm in 1675
for 2500 guilders, and his new farm, running toward
Coney Island for 2000 guilders. Some town lots
brought "750 guilders. The sum total was not such a
meagre competence considering the times and the cir-

JAN THE SECOND. 29

cumstance. When doled out among a wife and eleven
children it, of course, meant little to each ; but the
children married and scattered into a dozen different
families and even the faithful mother of the flock —
the redoubtable Tryntje — consoled herself a few years
later (1678) by taking a second husband. Of the
children, one son stayed on at New Utrecht and with
him our storv continues.

CHAPTER IV

Jan the Third

1652?— 1736

The fourth son of Jan the Second was a Jan Janse,

which in the old Dutch meant merely Jan Jans zoon, or

Jan the son of Jan. Whether this son of the third

generation came over in the Dutch ship with the high

poop in 1652 or whether he was born in the New World

remains a matter of doubt. It is no great matter, for

in either event he went with his parents to New

Utrecht and spent his boyhood there in the quiet Dutch

town by the Narrows. To all intents and purposes

he was the first American of the clan.

A boy's life on the shores of the Lower Bay two
hundred and fifty years ago was, of course, never
thought worthy of recitation in the chronicles ; but it
must have been an interesting life for all that. There
was school to be attended, for the Dutch early estab-
lished public instruction and the schoolmaster was
second only to the domine in local importance. Be-
sides this, there was farm work to be done, and chores
about the house ; but, even so, there was plenty of time
for play. The chief sport was hunting. The waters
in front of the town swarmed with fish, but fishing
never had the fascination of hunting and trapping.
The great handicap for a boy's hunting at that time,

[30]

JAN THE THIRD. 31

however, was the scarcity of powder and lead. More
than once fowling of any kind had teen forbidden by
the government as a waste of good ammunition that
should be kept for defense against enemies. But a
boy's ingenuity with abundant opportunity must have
been equal to inventing various spring traps ; and were
not the Indians there to teach the use of the bow,
arrow, spear and tomahawk?

In those days there were plenty of deer, elk and
bear in the Long Island woods, and turkeys, pheasants,
pigeons, rabbits were everywhere. It is not likely that
the young Jan effected much slaughter among the
larger game, but the rabbits, squirrels and pigeons were
probably worried by fire from bow and sling; and per-
haps many a 'possum was smoked out of a hollow tree
and hustled to a finish by the dogs. Youth needs little
teaching in such matters. The reversion to the hunter
\? natural and dominant in almost every boy. But Jan
the Third, like some of his later descendants, must
have received not only inspiration but instruction from
the Indians. There were redskins a-plenty on Long
Island and they were all friendly enough with the
Dutch. The boys of either the red or the white race
are less reticent than their elders, and it is very prob-
able that Jan and his companions soon got upon good
terms with the younger Indians. The wood trails and
the water ways, with game grounds and all the methods
of hunting and trapping, were known to the young red-
skins and were soon picked up by the white boys. The
spearing of fish from a canoe by torchlight, or through
the ice in winter, the baiting and trapping of turkeys

32 THE RARITAN.

in runways, the setting of springs for muskrats, beaver,
and mink, the chasing of young ducks with dogs, the
treeing of coons and squirrels, the effective use of the
bow and feathered arrow must have been known to
Jan. No boy on a frontier surrounded by a wilderness
contents himself with playing at marbles on the side-
walk or at ball in the pasture lot. He is born with a
love of the wild and accepts the artificial sports only
when the wild with its allurements is no more.

There can be little doubt that Jan the Third, as his
father before him, knew something of the River. With
its marshes and its meadows it was .a great hunting"
ground. The wood ducks bred there and in October
great clouds of mallard and teal swung up or down the
stream, passing from lake to lake, while wild geese in
V-shaped flocks honked their way down to the Lower
Bay. The back country was the feeding ground for all
sorts of game. The forests of oak and uplands of
chestnut and hickory, the far-away blue mountains, the
upper River, were haunts of the deer and the bear.
The whole region was as yet unexplored by the whites,
and consequently mysterious in its depths. Even the
faint Indian trails that ran through the underbrush
were uncanny in their windings and sudden disappear-
ances. It was a new land and had the spell of the
wilderness about it.

Jan must have loved it, must have longed to go there
and live ; but circumstances intervened and dictated
his staying at New Utrecht. One circumstance alone
probably had deciding weight. Before he was of age
to break ancestral ties he had made new ties in New

JAN THE THIRD. 33

York. The larger city was only a few miles away ;
and there he had met and fallen in love with a round-
faced Tryntje who was just as Dutch as himself. There
in the city he married the fair Tryntje May 9, 1673.
He could not take a young bride into the wilderness of
the River. Perhaps she was just a city girl, a home-
body, and afraid of the unknown. Jan could not be
dumb to her appeal to stay near the city and their
parents. At any rate he took Tryntje back with him
tc New Utrecht, took up life on the farm like his father
before him, raised grain and cattle, turned the furrow,
swung the scythe and cared for the herds.

But there was something more for Jan than the mere
routine of the farm. His fellow townspeople placed
his services at a higher value than perhaps he himself
did. In 1679 and thereafter he was a magistrate in the
town, and probably held the solemn court customary
to the Dutch — a court where an attempt at least was
made to be just to all parties concerned. And both he
and Tryntje were prominent in the church. The re-
cords show both of them members of the Dutch Church
of New Utrecht in 1679 and Jan as a deacon in 16S0,
an elder in 1684. Like his father, Jan was a leader in
all that pertained to his town — one of the town fathers.
And perhaps his activities had a still wider range and
had to do with the colony. His later appointments
suggest as much, but are not wholly convincing.

The times were stirring and trying. Political events
were happening. The colonial government was chang-
ing hands so swiftly and so often that stability and
tranquility were, out of the question. The West India

34 THE RARITAN.

Company had about come to the end of its rope ; Con-
necticut was pushing Long Island into a quarrel;
and no one knew from day to day what conquering
ships of the line might sail up the Bay and turn the
government awry once more. The Dutch were losing
their grip on the colony and they, naturally, did not
enjoy it. Everyone was interested, including those in
the five towns of Long Island, of which New Utrecht
was one.

The first forty years of Dutch rule in New Am-
sterdam had not been too successful. The policy of
the West India Company had been niggardly and
oppressive and when the English took the town in' 1664
and re-named it New York, there were many of the
Dutch who accepted the situation with complacency.
At any rate they were not disposed to fight over it.
The English governor, Nicholls, came in quietly and
acted with moderation. There was no bloodshed and
hence no deep-seated feeling calling for revenge. The
Dutch, of course, did not relish being ousted from the
government, but they submitted and the English had
their way.

In 1673, by a strange fluke and after a good deal of
blundering on both sides, the Dutch once more came
into possession of New York. The evacuation of the
English was quite as bloodless as that of the Dutch
nine years before. The English simply marched out
and the Dutch marched in. Colve became the gov-
ernor, the Dutch hope and flag were once more raised,
New York was rechristened New Orange; and Jan
the Third, probably thinking that at last an era of

1593356

JAN THE THIRD. 35

everlasting peace had dawned with the Dutch in the
ascendant, marched away and married Tryntje that
very year.

But the hopes of the Dutch were dashed. New
Orange was given back to the English the next year
and the city had its name changed once more to New
York. Jan probably sat back in his straight chair at
New Utrecht and grumbled with the rest of die Dutch,
but none of them did anything. No doubt the world
looked very large to them then with a great unsettled
continent stretching to the west whose limits no one
knew. What, indeed, was the use of quarreling about
a scrap of a colony when a continent was to be had
for the taking?

Still a further time the Dutch cause was revived.
In 1689 Leisler led his revolt, was believed in by the
Dutch, and measurably supported by them. It was at
this very time that Jan the Third accepted a commis-
sion as lieutenant of militia, and it was Leisler who
commissioned him. His range of activity we know
not, but it probably was purely local in and about New
Utrecht. At any rate, there is no note of his figuring
in action about New York, and, indeed, the Dutch as
a whole did not resist the deposition and even the
execution of Leisler. It is an odd page in the history
of the New Netherland Dutch that they apparently
gave up so readily to the pressure of the English. No
one quite understands it except on the basis of belief
that one government was about as inefficient as the
other, and neither of them was worth quarreling over.

When the Earl of Bellomont came into power in

36 THE RARITAN.

New York he was received rather graciously because
he had denounced the execution of Leisler as murder,
and was disposed to be conciliatory toward the Dutch.
They let his government go on without opposition. It
seems they even upheld and supported it. As for Jan
the Third, the Earl of Bellomont commissioned him
a captain in 1700 and he accepted. The records still
show his name upon the roster ; but there is no record
that he ever went out and did battle for the cause of
either the Dutch or the English. Perhaps Captain
Jan Janse, for all his high-sounding name and title,
never

"scuttled ship or cut a throat."

During his command possibly there was no need for
forceful measures ; and, then again, it may be that he
was averse to tumult and strife and held his command
merely that he might enforce quiet and order. His
ancestors had never been carried away by the trum-
pet's clangor and the cannon's roar. They rather
sneered at the struggle for command and prominence,
the sordid ambitions of men, the whole travail and labor
of society and government. They were outliers, dwell-
ers by the dykes, people who loved the free life in the
open with the wind in the forest and the sun on the
polders. Jan was of their blood and probably cared
more for the quiet of his "bouwerie," the breeze from
the sea, the blue sky overhead, than for all the strident
war of words about human rights and wrongs going
up from the throats of those who had neither honesty
nor truth in their hearts.

JAN THE THIRD. 37

At any rate Jan lived there by the waters of the
Lower Bay, seeing the suns rise over Long Island and
sink to rest beyond Staten Island, and was no doubt
content. The round-faced Tryntje had brought up a
family of two sons and six daughters (with the help
of only one black slave, according to the census) and
before Jan and Tryntje were old the children had
married and measurably scattered. At seventy-four,
thinking his days of work were over, Jan sold his
farm to his son-in-law, Captain Van Brunt, for
£1676. Nine years later he made a will bequeathing
his estate to his children with the exception of certain
pounds and shillings which he left to his grandchildren
and great grandchildren. And he did not fail to start
the will with the solemn declaration: "I bequeath my
soul to God who gave it, my body to the earth from
whence it came * * * in certain hopes of resur-
rection and the union of my body and soul at the last
day, and of Eternal Life through the sole merits of my
blessed Saviour." The declaration sounds trite today
but when made it was believed in. The simple faith
of the Dutch is something no one could ever cavil over.

Jan did not pass out until 1736. He was then an old
man of eighty-four — old perhaps as the result of
having lived sanely and soberly all his days. He had
not quarreled with his time and generation, but had
accepted both quietly. Who shall say he was not wise
in his philosophy?

CHAPTER V

Jan the Fourth

1682—1764

From the earliest days of the Family there seems to
have been a seated dislike of the crowd, the city, and
even the populated village. No sooner did a new place
become settled than the family was oft for some
frontier, some hinterland, some remote region far
from the mob. Two generations in one place were
enough. New Utrecht had known the two generations
and then the place had become uncomfortably civilized.
All Long Island at that time was complained of as
being "crowded," and some of the Dutch began to turn
their feet elsewhere. Jan the Fourth was one of the
iestless ones. Three generations had seen the River,
looking at it longingly perhaps, but Jan was the first
one with sufficient fortitude of soul to go there and
settle on its banks, though it is possible some of his
cousins had gone there a little ahead of him.

He had been born and baptized in 1682 at New
Utrecht. Under the shadow of the ancestral roof-
tree he had grown to manhood and married an An-
netje of New York whose parents had come over from
Guelderland in 1663 in the good ship "Rosetree."
The marriage took place June 6, 1706, and the pair
evidently went to New Utrecht to live, for several of

[38]

JAN THE FOURTH. 39

their children were born there. It was not until after
1711, when Jan was in his thirties and a deacon in
the church at New Utrecht, that he gathered together
the children and the family bocdcl and started up the
River in one of the Dutch trading sloops of the time.
What his point of destination no one can say with
certainty, but almost everyone at that time went to
Inian's Ferry (later New Brunswick) or Raritan
Landing; and there can be little doubt that Jan went
to the first place because his son Matthias was born
there in 1714, because Jan himself in 1715 was listed
there in Col. Harmer's New Jersey militia, Captain
Demont's company, and because in 1730 when New
Brunswick became a city, Jan's name appears on the
first board of aldermen.

Jan was living in or near or about New Brunswick
probably for several years and apparently he was not
only respected there but had greatly prospered. From
some source he came into considerable wealth because
when he was next heard from he was active at Maple-
ton, near what is now Kingston, and he there and
thereabouts owned 2135 acres of land. That was a
large territory at that time and Jan seems to have been
able to hold it during his long life, for in his will (still
on file at Trenton) he left a farm to each one of his
six sons and bequests of money to his three daughters.
There are different stories handed down by his des-
cendants, of his living at different places— Fresh
Ponds, Mapleton, Harlingen— but they may be ac-
counted for by his owning different tracts of land that
extended perhaps into all of these places. He was

40 THE RARITAN.

referred to as "John of Middlesex" and his principal
farm where he lived was along the present Middlesex
and Somerset county line near the Millstone River.

How did he happen to go back from the Raritan
into the hinterland? Possibly because some of his kin
were there, but probably because of the family love of
new country — the country unbroken and untrodden by
man. New Brunswick had grown rapidly and had
been populated not only from Long Island but by the
Dutch from Albany. It was soon too civilized for Jan.
He liked not houses along a street; he preferred the
trees in the meadow, the open fields, the glitter of light
upon the water. He cared not for gossiping people on
a corner; he preferred his yelping hounds or his silent
cattle. There was nothing for him but to move on.
The natural line of advance was along the old Indian
trail that led from the Raritan across to the Delaware
— the trail that afterward became the King's Highway.
It was along or back from this road that Jan bought
his land and laid out his farms. He had his choice in
those days and perhaps it was not strange that he
chose the most picturesque and beautiful portion of
the road for his homestead. This spot was a high
point of land overlooking the valley of the Millstone
— a tributary of the Raritan. From the high ridge
there was a grand view to the northwest writh the
Neshanic and Blawenburg hills near at hand and the
blue ridges of mountains off in the distance. It was
the vantage point of the picturesque for many miles
around.

JAN THE FOURTH. 41

Very beautiful in those days must have been the
valley of the Millstone. It is so yet. The banks break
down to the river in abrupt bluffs here and there, there
are steep shale cliffs with moss and clinging vines,
high points where signal pines still stand, sloping
benches with oak timber, and flat meadows with giant
elms. The river is not unlike the Raritan. It runs away
softly and smoothly through meadows and beneath
cliffs, pitching over no great heights and making no
great brawl or babble. Like many another small river,
its loveliness lies in its surface and the wonder-world
of light and color reflected therein.

A delightful stream to live beside because of its
intimacy, it must have been doubly attractive in Jan's
time because of its wildness and aloofness from the
world. The country thereabouts was being settled at
that time but, at first, very slowly. The farms were
far apart, the Indians had not entirely gone; and
the trail to the Delaware was being traveled by strange
people afoot and a-horseback. Adventure was in the
air. And yet it is doubtful if Jan and his wife knew
. very much fear or had many thrills about either
people or events. They went out on the Millstone
probably to get rid of such things. Social and political
affairs did not interest them. They were more inter-
ested in the clear air, the bright sunlight, the uncut
timber, the shining water of the river before them. No
one who has not known the wilderness primeval can
quite understand the beckon and the charm of it.

No doubt there were times on the big farms when
the seclusion was a bit too much, when the faithful

42 THE RARITAN,

Annetje heaved a great sigh and longed for the social
doings of New Brunswick or New York, and Jan
called himself names under his breath for coming so
far afield. In every life there are times of regret —
times when one wishes the other way had been fol-
lowed. But where there is plenty of work there is
usually little time for pondering over what might have
been. The family on the Millstone had enough to do
in putting the great farms into shape. Jan was the
overseer of all. It is certain that the Family held
slaves from the beginning and there is no doubt that
many of them were working on the property owned
by Jan ; but aside from that, Jan himself probably on
occasion held the plow, swung the flail, and helped
store the crops in the great double-doored barns.
While he was away in the fields Annetje and the black
women spun the flax, wove the linen, made the butter
and cheese, reared the family. Both had their tasks
and when evening came and they could sit down on
the great porch and look outward at the far blue
mountains perhaps they were not only content but
happy. There were children to keep them amused
and teach them patience; and the Dutch, more than
others, lived in their families.

After the children had grown up, married, and
started out for themselves, some of them on Jan's
large tracts of land at Harlingen and elsewhere, then
came the grandchildren. It is believable the young
sters were glad to gather at the old homestead on
Christmas and New Year's Day to eat the cookies
and the pies, drink the cider, and romp in the hay

JAN THE FOURTH. 43

mows of the great Dutch barns. Those were wonder-
ful days for the children and happy days for the
elders. There was no end of jollity, good feeling and
good cheer. Jan — Jan of the Dutch tongue still —
could be very merry after his apple toddy and prob-
ably danced the little ones on his foot singing the old
sing-a-song-of-sixpence of the Dutch :

"Trip a trop a tronjes
De varkens in de boonjes
De koejes in de klaver
De paarden in de haver
De eenjes in de water plass
So groot myn kleine Tryntje was."

Jan and his wife talked Dutch and read together
their huge Staats-General Bible, which with its silver
corners and clasps is still preserved ; but the Dutch
language was fast dying out. The children probably
understood it, but preferred to talk English. Domine
Theodorus Frelinghuysen had preached in Dutch in
Die Kerk op de Millston, that is at Sourland (Har-
lingen) from 1729 to 1747, and after him his son
Joannes. Then came the building in 1750 of the square
stone church. It was built on land given by Jan (or
his son) and on the subscription list for the building
Jan's name (or his son's) is down for a substantial sum.
One or the other of the Jans was also chosen among
the first group of church masters or trustees. It was
to this church that Domine van Harlingen was called
in 1762, and the tradition comes down that he was not
too popular with the young people of the congregation

44 THE KAR1TAX.

because he preached only in Dutch and many of them
could not understand it.

The language was fast slipping away and with it
many of the old Dutch customs. The English initia-
tive had developed all along the line. Jan and his wife,
at times, must have felt themselves perhaps, part of
a vanishing past; but as their surroundings grew a
little more contracted they came closer together and
were willing enough to be counted old fogies. They
had lived long and were determined to live on even
into the twilight. And they did.

Their graves are still intact in the Ten Mile Run
Cemetery — a burying ground originally belonging in
Jan's tract and given by him in his will to his son
Jacob. The propensity of the time to drop the Dutch
and go on with the English was, perhaps thoughtlessly,
shown on the gravestones of the pair where Jan
appears translated as "Jno. Senr.," and Annetje as
"Ann." On both stones in English one reads, "Up-
wards of 80 years." It is something of a pity that
those who had been Dutch all their lives could not
have been allowed to remain Dutch in their graves.

What a great age they reached! Jan was eighty-
four and Annetje about the same. His father before
him had gone on to the same four-score and upwards,
and his son, Jacob, who continued after him living
by the Millstone, died at eighty-six. All the genera-
tions at that time seem to have lived long compared
with those of today. Was it due to the open country
life or the well-poised mind, or both? Existence then
was rational in that it fitted itself to nature and was

JAN THE FOURTH. 45

a part of it. Today the strident and the hectic obtain
and the attempt is to drive nature beyond the limit of
endurance. The sober sense, the philosophy, the
aplomb of the Dutch, were their great assets. They had
their joys and sorrows like other people, but they took
both of them quietly. Their disappointments did not
fret them nor their worries worry them. They lived
their day, they bided their time. When it was the
hour to go we do not hear that they rebelled or shrank
or faltered. Not one of them but believed in God and
a future life. What simple straight-forward living and
dying as compared with the complicated programme
of today ! Perhaps they builded better than they knew
because quite unconscious of building at all or- of
doing anything that was not sane and just and right.

CHAPTER VI

Jan the Fifth

1709—1778

Jan the Fifth must have been a very small boy when
he came up the River with his father and landed at
Inian's (or Inion) Ferry. He is said to have "lived
at New Brunswick" by which was probably meant that
he stayed on there with the elder Jan until after 1730,
and then, with his father, went back to the Millstone,
and took up life on one of the farms at or near Har-
lmgen. He inherited from Jan the Fourth a farm of
some 230 acres in the Harlingen tract, and, before it
became his property, he probably lived upon it. He
was known in the Harlingen region as "John Jr." to
distinguish him from his father, and in the records
the name is also Anglicized, though it is almost cer-
tain that he was baptized with the old Dutch name of
Jan.

Whether Jan met and married his first wife, Mar-
garet, at New Brunswick or at Harlingen is not now
apparent, but the ceremony itself took place in 1732.
There were three children by this marriage and one
of the children, the eldest son known as Colonel John,
was supposed to have put a good many grey hairs in
his father's head, as will hereafter appear. When
Margaret died Jan married, in 1750, a Garetta of

[46]

JAN THE FIFTH. 47

Rocky Hill, by whom he had ten children. They all
seem to have been baptized at the Six Mile Run
Church and to have lived at or near Harlingen
(presumably on the ancestral farms of Jan the Fourth)
until they married and scattered. Jan himself took up
life there after the fashion of his family, not seeking
publicity or notoriety or office of any kind, but leading
the free life of an independent farmer, happy in his
independence and enjoying the sunlight and the air like
a rational being. None of the Family had ever worried
the community with importunities about office or posi-
tion or command.

But it cannot be presumed of Jan, or his time and
family, that because things were not matters of record
therefor nothing ever happened or no noteworthy deed
was ever done. Very few things in those days got into
print or were kept even in written documents. The
church with its baptisms and deaths, the courts with
their files of cases were records, but many of these
have disappeared. Deeds and wills largely shared the
same fate. Almost everything before the Revolution
has vanished. One gropes now for happenings that
must have been and finds nothing. It may be assumed
that Jan lived the life of his time, gave of his strength
in the service of the community, and like his father
before him, was a man of light and leading in his age
and generation. He was a church warden at Harlin-
gen in 1754, and either he, or his father, was one of
the founders of the church there. It is possible that
both of them were near Harlingen up to the death of the
elder and, their names being the same, has led to some

48 THE RARITAN.

confusion in inference. Again in 1772-73, Jan's name
appears on township committees in various capacities.
But whatever his deeds or doings before the Revo-
lution, and however important or unimportant they
may have been, they were all lost sight of in the final
act of his life. That was so dramatic that it over-
shadowed all his early years and has come down in
family tradition as the principal event of his career.
It has lived so positively with so many descendants
of the Family, and repeats itself with each one of them
so accurately, that there is no doubt whatever of its
truth, though it never got into the state or county
records, was never reported in history, and has yet to
be told in romance.

Jan was one of the company of Minute Men
organized in Hillsborough township (adjoining Harlin-
gen) the 3d of May, 1775, "to be ready, at a minute's
notice to march in defense of the liberty of our coun-
try." He was in Capt. Vroom's Company, 2nd Bat-
talion, Somerset County Militia. Abraham Quick was
the Colonel of the regiment. On the 16th day of May
the officers of the militia and the Committee of Ob-
servation appointed three members "to provide ammu-
nition for said company and arms for those who are
not able to buy for themselves, and the aforesaid
gentlemen are desired to take £ 40 Proc. in money on
the credit of the township to buy 140 pounds powder,
420 pounds lead and 120 flints, etc."

That, and a meagre mention of names on a local
poster (saved from destruction by a mere accident)
are about the only "documents" that remain; but we

JAN THE FIFTH. 49

may be reasonably certain about what was not re-
corded. The events that culminated in the Revolution
were causing apprehension and, among the colonists,
a tide of wrath was rising. Jan was out in the open
against the British, he had enlisted, taken up arms
against the king. England had been the traditional foe
in the Family from time immemorable. All the Dutch
in his blood, as well as the American, was fired to
anger. How otherwise shall you account for a man
of sixty-seven taking down the gun from the wall and
going into the line. He was at that age when he might
have held back and let others fight. No one would
have accused him of cowardice or lack of loyalty.
But no: the patience and good humor of his life was
crystallized into anger, his sense of justice was out-
raged, and, quite aside from the country being in
danger, he would fight because the country had been
scorned, trampled upon, wronged.

Jan was not alone in his family in taking this positive
stand against the British. Ruloff, his brother, was a
deputy to the Provincial Congress and also a member
of the Committee of Safety, Abraham, another
brother, was a Lieutenant of Grenadiers, Jan's own
son, Abraham the Younger, was a private in the ranks.
His cousins and nephews and relatives by marriage
were all in arms against the king and for the country.
But alas! there was one heart-breaking exception.
His first-born, Colonel John, was a tory, a loyalist,
and wore the king's uniform. In matters of that sort
where one might wish the facts lost and history silent
the records speak with undue emphasis, and they are

50 THE RARITAN.

not missing here ; but what never was told, never will
be told, was the wounded pride and anguish of that old
man at swords points with his own son. A family
quarrel is perhaps the very worst of all, and this was
brother against brother and father against son. It
clove the family in twain, it was never forgotten or
forgiven, and both father and son went to the grave in
bitterness of soul and with a sense of injury.

"Well John, if you must go to the British deed back
to me the farm that I gave you," was the old man's
ultimatum. The Roman Brutus was not more deter-
mined than Jan the Fifth. He wanted no prosperity
with the enemy of the country, even though the enemy
was his own son. The son yielded to the demand, but
on one condition. That was that in case he was killed
in the war his wife and children should have the
property again. The father was not averse to this.
He did not want to visit the sins of the son upon the
wife and children, and so he in turn, agreed to the new
condition. Then they parted, and it is said they never
spoke — never saw each other again.

In the Family tradition Jan is always called the
patriot and Colonel John, the tory, as though one were
altogether right and the other altogether wrong. The
father, no doubt, insisted with force that not even a
family tie should be considered before the country. It
was every one's duty to uphold the land and strike
down its foes. Perhaps he was right from that point
of view. But had not the son some right on his side,
too? What was his argument, his excuse, for turning

JAN THE FIFTH. 51

against family, home, friends, country, and facing
reprobation and perhaps ruin?

It was a very compelling statement that Colonel John
put forth, and at any other time or place would have
carried not only conviction but commendation ; but it
was a period of great excitement, of violent partisan-
ship; and the statement fell upon unsympathetic ears.
Briefly it was this. Before, and at the time the Revo-
lution broke out, he was a magistrate and a colonel in
the British army. He had taken the king's bounty
and had worn his uniform. Above all, he had sworn a
solemn oath of allegiance to the king. He had been
trusted implicitly and promoted to high command.
Was he now to prove traitor to his cause and perjurer
to his oath? He could not do it. That living up to
one's creed that Jan his father had taught him as a
boy was now proving the defect of its quality. It
was a great virtue, but to Jan the Fifth it was in this
case a vice — a serpent that he had warmed to life and
that had turned and stung him. What heart burnings
there must have been with those two stubborn men,
each of whom was right from his own point of view !

Perhaps the Family tradition was never quite just
tc Colonel John. He was an honorable upright man
and neither a traitor nor a coward. And he did what
he could to prevent friction and bloodshed. He would
not fight against his own men and his king ; but neither
would he fight against his family, friends and neigh-
bors. He asked to be transferred to the British navy,
and that request was granted. He did not figure con-
spicuously in the war, though taken prisoner once and

i 52 THE RARITAN.

; confined at Philadelphia. His faithful wife did not
\ rest until she had secured his exchange for an Ameri-
\ can prisoner at New Brunswick. His faithful wife!
She, indeed, was about the only one that stood with
him and for him. There again were more complica-
tions, for she was his first cousin — a daughter of his
uncle Ruloff, who was a member of the Committee of
Safety and a Congressional deputy. Colonel John not
only had to stand against his father but against his
father-in-law, uncles, brothers, cousins — in short,
everyone save his wife, the tories, and a few faithful
slaves. He must have been a man of iron nerve. The
tales told about him, but not repeated here, confirm
such a belief.

The tories at that time excited more wrath than
the enemy. They were spies within the camp and the
colonists thought hanging was too good for them. The
people at Harlingen mobbed them when they could.
Did not Major Baird lead a mob that tried to smoke
out that notorious tory, John Honeyman, at Griggstown
— the cattle dealer who was supplying the British with
cattle and horses, giving aid and comfort to the enemy?
Whether Jan the Fifth went with the mob no one now
knows, but he was with it in spirit. Had he known
then that his grandson x\braham, at that time an infant
ti» arms, was destined to marry the daughter of this
same tory, John Honeyman, he might have expired in
a fit of wrath. But he was not to witness that cere-
mony.

The events of the Revolution, though they carried
over a number of years, probably took place quite

JAN THE FIFTH. 53

rapidly for the staid people of the time. Middlesex
and Somerset were the scenes of many skirmishes,
raids, and minor battles. The River ran on as serenely
bright and careless as ever, but its banks in spots were
soaked with blood, and many a home along its uplands
■was standing only in charred ruins. The whole valley
was the theatre of a guerilla warfare and the local
militia was ever on the alert and moving. The climax
-came with Clinton's retreat from Philadelphia across
New Jersey in 1778. Washington came out to harass
the enemy, to cut off his twelve-mile baggage train,
to embarrass him in even- way. The Somerset militia
under General Dickenson was with the Continental
army. Apparently every man who could shoulder a
gun was there. And in the column marched the pat-
riotic if irascible Jan the Fifth.

There were dippings and hawkings and skirmishes
all along the line of retreat, but it was not until Clinton
"had reached Monmouth — the 28th of June, 1778 — that
the armies finally came to grips. The sandy tracts and
marshes near there made movements difficult, both
armies were worn and weary, and they came together
in a sullen desperate mood. Throughout the day
checks and counter-checks, advances and retreats fol-
lowed on both sides. At the start Lee had failed and
led a retreat that brought a sharp reprimand from
Washington and caused some discouragement among
the Continentals. But the chief rallied them and again
they formed and went into the struggle. Positions
were lost and won, ground was shifted, batteries were
■changed, but all day long the fight went on with mus-

54 THE RARITAN.

ketry clashing and cannon booming. New Jersey had
never known such a terrific cannonading. It was the
most violent of all the war. Over in Harlingen and
far away up the River toward the blue mountains of
the distance the shock carried. The country people
— what was left of them — stood in groups listening to
that booming of the guns coming from afar as a con-
cussion, a sharp spat on the air. How eager must have
been the interest! And how those people must have
prayed to the God of Battles for the victory that day !

Quite as severe as the cannonading was the heat.*
The sun blazed with fury and the soldiers were in an
agony of thirst. They threw away packs and blankets,
threw away coats and waistcoats, and in their shirt
sleeves went on with the fight. Where ranks were cut
to pieces they were filled up. Moll Pitcher with her
gunner-husband killed went on loading and firing his
cannon. All day long the battle continued and dark-
ness alone stopped the struggle. It had been the most
desperate battle on Jersey soil. Something like twenty
thousand men had been involved on both sides. The
British had lost five hundred men and the Americans
less than half that number. The worn troops slept on

*Dr. Aitken in his Distinguished Families in America de-
scended from U'ilhelmus Beck man and Jan Thomasse Van
Dyke quotes one of the family as saying: "Grandmother told
me that she was busy at her spinet that awful 28th day of
June 1778. The heat was intense. She heard the dreadful
boom, boom of the cannon from the battle of Monmouth * *
* * Grandmother said it seemed to her as if the very earth
trembled. Her grandfather, that Godly patriot, John Van
Dyke, Jr., of Xew Jersey, gave his life that day for his coun-
try on that bloody battlefield."

JAN THE FIFTH. 55

their arms thinking the battle would go on in the
morning. No one had time nor strength to look to
the dead. It must have been a sorry sight — that of
the pretty slopes and ravines of Monmouth under the
starlight, with forms lying here and there crumpled
up in agony or resting quite limp and still as they fell.
The bullets had been no respecters of rank. Officers
and men were flung together in death. And the days
of a man's years had counted for naught. Young and
old were lying there side by side. And among them,
with his face to the foe we may be sure, was Jan the
Fifth — dead in his seventieth year.f

fit is proper to add here that a less dramatic ending is attri-
buted to Jan the Fifth by one of his collateral descendants.
Mr. Warren B. Stout in the Somerset County Historical Quar-
terly, Oct. 1915, states that he "died at Harlingen, December 4,
1777, and is supposed to be buried in the grounds surrounding
the church." It is probable that this was another Jan, as there
were several of the name at Harlingen. In any event the Fam-
ily tradition has stronger confirmation. Traditions get warped
and twisted in the telling, but a death on a battlefield could
hardly have been invented by descendants who were living at
the time of the battle.

CHAPTER VII

Abraham the Sixth

1753—1804

Colonel John the tory was the older brother by some
years of Abraham the Sixth. He was a half brother
only, but they grew up together and must have been
close companions. When the Revolution came the
brothers parted, as did father and son; and perhaps
the feeling of estrangement was carried on for years
after the war closed. At any rate the direct descend-
ants of Abraham were warned through several genera-
tions to stand by the country and the flag, right or
wrong; and to take warning by the example of the
Family tory, Colonel John. It seems as though there
must have been bad blood between the half-brothers
even after the war had ended. They went their ways
and probably saw little of each other.

Colonel John lived on at Harlingen in a large house
that is still pointed out to the curious, and there is
the usual ghost story told about it. Abraham probably
left Harlingen before the Revolution. He had no
doubt often looked at the blue hills in the north-
west and had longed to go up nearer to them. Har-
lingen had grown too familiar to him ; there were too
many settlers thereabouts. It was not wild enough and
the old love of the free unbroken country was his. Be-

[56]

AB RAH AM THE SIXTH. 57

sides, the River started up there in the blue hills and
he perhaps wanted to get back upon its waters.

Perhaps and perhaps. We do not know the why;
we know only that he went there — went far up on the
Lamington (orginally Alamatong or Allemetunk) a
branch of the River and settled about a mile above
what was afterward known as Vliet's Mills. He had
come into possession there of a large farm — so large
that it has since been cut up into three or four farms.
It lay on the Hunterdon County side of the stream, not
in Somerset— a fact that no doubt led to some con-
fusion of names and events thereafter.

In connection with this large farm Abraham owned
mills on the Lamington, known by his name, and was
considered a man of means. Where his means came
from may now only be conjectured. He was too young
a man to have made wealth and the only other source
of acquirement was through his father. There was a
good deal of property owned by Jan the Fourth and
Jan the Fifth, for they gave away farms to many
children. Besides Garetta of Rocky Hill, wife of Jan
the Fifth and mother of Abraham the Sixth, in her
will left a female slave to each of her four daughters
—a personal servant fitting their estate. That, again,
suggests well-to-do circumstances. A great-niece of
Jan the Fifth remarked many times in her later years
that when she was a child her uncle had "a whole
kitchen full of black folks." Some of these slaves
with their children came down from Jan the Fourth
and later all of them were liberated — manumitted was
the term used. It is doubtless true that Abraham the

58 THE RARITAN.

Sixth held some slaves on the Lamington farm, but
certainly his son and descendants never did. Slavery
after the Revolution was voluntarily abandoned in
New Jersey.

Just when Abraham the Sixth came up on the Lam-
ington is not precisely known, but it was two or three
years before the outbreak of the war, and possibly im-
mediately after his marriage. The latter event very like-
ly took place in 1773 when he was twenty and the Ida
of his choice was just eighteen. From Harlingen the
young couple, "with splendid promise in their eyes,"
went forth to conquer the comparatively new world up
on the Lamington. The first son was born in 1774 and
died three years later, but whether born at Harlingen
or on the Lamington farm is not known. Their second
son, Abraham the Seventh, was without doubt born on
the farm in 1776, the opening year of the war. So it
appears they were well settled on the farm before the
Revolution.

That dire event cast its shadow across the threshold
of the young couple. The new- farm needed the young
husband's services, but the country needed them still
more, and there was nothing for him to do but take
down the gun and go forth. That he did. And did it
probably with no feeling that he was doing anything
heroic or dramatic. It was the path of duty and he
probably never for a moment thought of it as the path
of glory. Little did he or his kin care for glory. And
he won little, if we may trust the records. After a
hundred years his very name has disappeared from the
published lists and some of his collateral descendants

ABRAHAM THE SIXTH. 59

have doubted his being in the war at all. But nothing
could be more certain than that he was there. Among
his immediate descendants the tale has been told too
often, and handed down too directly to admit of error.

One descendant who was born in the farm house at
Lamington and lived there until he was twenty-three,
wrote in 18S8 (he was then over sixty) : "Your great
grandfather was a soldier in the Revolution, was
discharged at Morristown, and came home so ragged
that his wife did not know him, and with an old flint-
lock kept him standing at the door for some time. I
handled his old shooting-iron and kept it as a relic
until I came West."* How very familiar that story
in the Family ! Each generation was told it. It used
to be somewhat elaborated when told to the children
at dusk, and to them it was a bit awesome. The fuller
narrative spoke of the small family alone there in the
house, of the sound of a galloping horse in the night,
the fear of raiding Hessians, the children cowering
and hushed in a corner, the young wife standing guard,
flint-lock in hand, behind the locked door, the insistence
of the soiled and ragged horseman upon getting in.
There was never much told about die after-recognition
and the joy of that small family at getting the husband
and the father back safe from the war. That was a
matter of sentiment — something the Family had in
abundance but never cared to talk about, and never
cared to show in any conspicuous way.

Now the two children who were cowering in the

*David D. Bunn to the writer in 1SSS.

60 THE RARJTAN.

corner at the time of the soldier's return were the son,
Abraham the Seventh, and his sister, Garetta, or as
the Family knew her, Aunt Charity. Abraham did not
die until 1854, and Aunt Charity lived on for ninety
three years, not dying until 1871. The soldier died in
1804 but the children had then grown up and had
heard at first hand the narrative which they afterward
passed on to the younger generation. All the grand-
children heard the story directly from Abraham the
Seventh and Aunt Charity, and one of them knew it
directly from Ida the widow, who had figured in the
hold-up and did not die until 1821. There was abund-
ance of direct evidence to prove the service of Abraham
the Sixth in the war, but in the Family there never
was any need for proof. The fact was never ques-
tioned.

Just when the young soldier entered the war, how
long he was in it, what he did, what his hair-breadth
escapes, are not known. Perhaps they were never told.
The reticence of the Family about their own affairs,
even within the family circles, was ever and always
astonishingly great. They were close-mouthed to an
irritating degree. It was not that they desired to keep
"secrets" or hide deeds, but because they thought them
of no particular importance. Their ambitions did not
run to notoriety or even distinction ; they cared nothing
about public recognition of their work or public
applause of any kind. It is a singular thing that in all
the direct generations down to John the Eighth not a
single member ever sought office, ever struggled in
society for a top place, ever pursued wealth in com-

ABRAHAM THE SIXTH. 61

merce, ever traded or sold or wrangled over the incre-
ment with his fellow men. Whether through pride —
and they were always a rather sneering scoffing lot —
or indifference they never cared to go into a contest
about small matters. If anything was offered to them
it might be accepted, but it would not be asked for or
run after. That was incompatible with dignity. And
the amount of dignity each succeeding head of the
Family carried about with him might have been amusing
had it not been so serious. The elders were very self-
centred, reasonably self-satisfied, and always self-
sufficient, though they judged themselves severely
enough by their own standards of right and wrong.
They held aloof as much as possible from other people,
kept away from the towns, and settled matters by their
own hearthstone or in the open air.

It is probable that when Abraham the Sixth went up
on the Lamington he cut himself free from his own
family. At any rate we know nothing positively of his
after-relations with Griggstown. He was in a new
country, on a new farm, with mills and other property
to look after, and probably had plenty of work on his
hands. The region of the Lamington in those days was
rather remote and somewhat unbroken. There were
dense woods along the stream and abundance of game.
The stream itself was lively and below the great farm
a mile or more were the mills — a grist mill, a pulling
mill and a carding mill. Above on the stream were
forges where iron was made, and not far removed was
the inevitable distillery where apple-jack was turned
out for domestic consumption. A brisk local trade

62 THE RARITAN.

along a few lines was developed at that time, but it was
limited in area. There were settlers there before the
Revolution; but, again, they were not numerous and
the houses were far apart. Abraham had to deal with
primitive conditions and he probably enjoyed them.
The timber was thick, the water pure, the air clear,
and the sunlight fell in golden showers. What more
did he need?

He appears to have come home from the war, hung
up the gun, and assumed the burden of life on the
Lamington with alacrity. Though, as has been stated,
neither he nor any of his fathers had ever sought office,
yet office quite often sought them. For many years
Abraham was the local magistrate of his district and
perhaps held other county offices of which we now have
no record. One of his descendants writes : "His old
(court) docket was among the rubbish in the garret at
your grandfather's and I used to overhaul and look at
it on rainy days. It was kept in a beautiful round
hand said by Aunt Charity to be the penmanship of a
distinguished penman by the name of Allen."*

When court business was slack and the mill and
farm work would allow, perhaps Abraham took
the old flint-lock and went out hunting pheasants or
ducks or deer. About the only amusement the men of
the Family ever indulged in was shooting. They were
all born pot-hunters. The love of that sport came down
in a straight line from the old North Sea ancestors,
and is rife today in the latest descendants. There were

*David D. Bunn.

ABRAHAM THE SIXTH. 63

social amusements for the women and the young people
such as husking and quilting bees, apple-paring frolics,
and all that; but the elders were staid and rather
serious people. They sat by the open fireplace with its
hooks and pots, its pewter and brass, they came and
went through the double Dutch doors, they wandered
in the old-fashioned garden and through the apple
orchards, they drove and rode hither and yon ; but
they were very sober about it at all. Humor never came
into the Family while the Dutch blood prevailed.

Did Abraham and Ida ever get far from the double
doors, the wide porch, the spring house, the gateway —
the limits of the farm? Did they ever drag out of the
chests their stored finery of silk and satin and go forth
— she in the large petticoat with much lace and all the
family jewelry, he in the plush small clothes, buckled
slippers, blue coat and fancy waistcoat? Did they ever
drive down to the Landing above New Brunswick on
the River and there take boat for New York? Did
they come and go, visiting relatives and seeing sights in
the newly-built cities of the western world? There is
a record of the clothes and jewelry, for some of each,
with much family silver, came down the line; and
there is tradition of fine linen, great poster beds, chests,
wonderful carved tables and chairs in that old farm
house; but there is only vague allusion to junketings
and travels. Perhaps they took place. And if they
did who would be foolish enough to make a record of
them?

Abraham the Sixth went his way to the shades at
fifty-one — rather early for one of the open air. His

64 THE RAKITAN.

fathers had run on into the eighties and close to the
nineties. Perhaps the service in the Revolution had
in some way undermined what should have been a
long-lasting constitution. At any rate he died in 1804
and was buried in the Lamington churchyard, and his
faithful wife, Ida, was laid beside him in 1821. Six of
his children grew up on the farm, marrying and living
near there. His oldest son Abraham, whom we have
styled Abraham the Seventh, evidently lived on and
probably took charge of the mills and the old farm,
though later on he seems to have bought another farm
lying between what was later known as Kennedy's
Mills and Peapack. The old homestead farm of Abra-
ham the Sixth was probably at that time cut up into
smaller areas and either sold or parcelled out to the
children.

CHAPTER VIII

Abraham the Seventh
1776-1854.

The Revolution lent something of an afterglow to
the life of Abraham the Seventh. The war had been a
momentous happening, and was not immediately lost
sight of in favor of something new and startling as at
the present day. Events were not of frequent occur-
rence then and were consequently long remembered.
Besides Abraham the Seventh had been born during
the war and had witnessed in a dumb childish way the
return of his father and his reception by his mother.
He had no recollection of it, of course; but then he
naturally took an after-interest in it from hearing it
spoken about.

He was born on his father's farm above the mills,
March 23, 1776, and grew up there very much as other
boys of the time. He was, probably, not an infant prod-
igy ; at least no remarkable tales have been handed down
about him. The first event of his life that seemed to
find record was his marriage on January- 14, 1802, to'
Sarah, the daughter of a neighbor, who lived on a
bordering 220-acre farm. Sarah had been born in
1780 and was a child of the Revolution like her hus-
band. Both their parents had been in the war, and
Sarah's father was no less a person than that one-time

[65]

66 THE RAR1TAN.

notorious tory, John Honeyman, whose house and
family had been mobbed at Harlingen, as told some
pages back. John Honeyman was such a remarkable
character and his daughter's marriage into die Family,
of which Abraham the Seventh was the latest repre-
sentative, had such a remarkable effect that some para-
graphs must be given to him.

He was not Dutch, but Scotch-Irish and a Cove-
nanter. He had come to America in 1758 as a con-
script with Colonel (afterwards General) Wolfe and
through special service had become attached to \\ olfe's
military family. A year later with his chief he scaled
the Heights of Abraham, fought at the battle of Que-
bec with that chief, and when Wolfe was mortally
wounded helped bear him from the field of battle,
"walking most of the way in blood" as he afterward
expressed it. After the war he went to Philadelphia
and there married a very intelligent girl, Mary Henry,
of his own faith and courage, and, like himself, of
Scotch-Irish descent. In Philadelphia he first saw
Washington, and after the outbreak of the Revolution,
in which he took a profound interest, he sought an
opportunity to be presented to the chief. He was
successful largely through letters that had been given
him by General Wolfe and by his honorable discharge
from the English-French War. There were a number
of interviews. Honeyman never revealed their nature
or what was discussed, but his after actions showed that
there was an understanding.

In the early part of 1776, Honeyman, with his wife
and several small children, moved to Griggstown in

ABRAHAM THE SEVENTH. 67

Somerset County. He was to act the part of a spy for
the American cause in that part of New Jersey with
which he was most familiar. He had been a British
soldier under "Wolfe and had small difficulty now in
playing the part of a tory and quietly talking for the
British side. He was to appear as a cattle-dealer,
supply the British army with horses and cattle, get
their confidence ; and if it got too hot for him on the
American side he was to go over inside the British
lines and continue his cattle-dealings. When he had
learned any matter of importance he was to allow
himself to be captured by the Americans by a seeming
venture beyond the British lines in quest of cattle.

This was all carried out. After he went over into
the British lines, Washington offered a reward for his
capture but coupled with the imperative direction that
the tory be brought unharmed immediately to his
headquarters. The greatest secrecy was maintained.
Only Washington, Honeyman, and his brave wife knew
what was being done. To the people of Somerset
Honeyman was a notorious tory who had gone over
completely to the British — a man who was worse than
a traitor.

It was near Trenton that the Spy, ostensibly on a
hunt for cattle, went beyond the British lines and after
a struggle was captured by two American cavalrymen.
He had been moving along with the British in pursuit
of the worn and discouraged American army, and had
carefully noted the number of troops, positions, roads,
lax conditions of discipline, with the British. He had
information to impart. He was taken at once to Wash-

68 THE RARITAN.

ington's headquarters as a great capture. The chief
saw him alone for half an hour. Then he was placed
in a guard-house for trial the next day with several
guards on patrol. In the night a slight fire started in
the camp ; the guards rushed to put it out. When they
returned the prisoner was not there. He had escaped.
Three days later Washington had re-crossed the icy
Delaware with his troops and won the battle of Tren-
ton. The victory was epoch making. The tide turned.
The country was saved.

The Spy was not captured with the Hessians at Tren-
ton. He had gone back to the British, told a doleful
tale of his capture, and the weak condition of the
Americans, and then quickly started for New Bruns-
wick. The news of his capture and escape at Trenton
soon got back to his home at Griggstown. The neigh-
bors were indignant. It was "old Major Baird" that
gathered the neighbors together in a mob and led them
by night to the home of the Spy, thinking to find him
in hiding there. They found only the Spy's wife and
her small children. She did not know where he was,
but in order to stem the anger of the mob she asked
for the leader to come forth. Major Baird came to
her. She handed him a paper that was afterward
known by heart in the Family. He read it to the crowd
and thereafter the gathering quickly dispersed. It
read:

' "American Camp,

"New Jersey, Nov. A. D. 1776.
"To the good people of New Jersey and all
others whom it may concern: It is hereby or-

ABRAHAM THE SEVENTH. 69

dered that the wife and children of John
Honeyman of Griggstown, the notorious tory
now within the British lines, and probably act-
ing the part of a spy, shall be, and hereby are,
protected from all harm and annoyance from
every quarter until further orders. But this
furnishes no protection to Honeyman himself.
George Washington,

"Com.-in-Chief."

All through the war Honeyman played the Spy for
Washington and had for it the curses of his country-
men and neighbors : but after the war Washington and
several of his generals came to visit Honeyman, and
the story was out. But the Spy, outside of his imme-
diate family, was very reticent. He never wished the
British to know he had played them false.*

The doings of the Spy and his wife, Mary Henry,
are significant in this sketch of a Family only because
their daughter, Sarah, married Abraham the Seventh.
There was new blood and new spirit injected into the
long Dutch line. It had gone on pure Dutch for no
One knows how many centuries, but here at last was a

*As illustrating the ease with which facts are forgotten and
lost it may he said that this bit of history would have com-
pletely perished by this time but for the chance chronicle of
the Spy's grandson who, in his age, wrote down the story,
•with many facts not given here. Since it was written docu-
ments discovered in the Secretary of State's office at Trenton
go to confirm it and it has now passed into history. See An
Unwritten Account of the Spy of Washington by John Van
Dyke in Our Home, Oct. 1873. Also the Honeyman Family
by A. V. D. Honeyman, page 97. Also Stryker's Battles of
Trenton and Princeton, page 87 et seq.

70 THE RARITAN.

break in the tradition. A Scotch-Irish girl came into
the Family. Her parents were not only of a different
people, but had different traits and characteristics, dif-
ferent nerves, different ideals, different aspirations.
She inherited their views of life and passed them on
down to the children. The old order at once began
changing, giving place to new.

One feature that showed immediately in the children
was a certain nervous discontent, sometimes called am-
bition. The generations that were Dutch never had it.
They aspired to self -development, self -poise, rational
living and dying ; but they had no ambitions about
leading their fellowmen, or being the popular hero, or
holding conspicuous place in the community or nation.
All that came in with Sarah. The daring spirit of the
Spy and his bright wife was in the daughter and the
grandchildren. It did not show in arms and warfare,
for the war had passed, but it showed in uneasiness
and dissatisfaction with the traditional life in the open
air. The children broke away from the farms and
went to the cities, starting upon new and different
careers from the generations before them.

Another, and perhaps a more acceptable, trait than
ambition came in with Sarah and her children. She
infused a sense of humor. Again the Dutch genera-
tions never possessed it. They knew gaiety on occa-
sion, and could on feast days be as jolly as other folk;
but a pervading sense of humor was not theirs. Quick
wit came with the infusion of Scotch-Irish blood.
The Spy and his witty sayings were remarkable for
three generations in the Family, and many of his hum-

ABRAHAM THE SEVENTH. 7\

orous stories have been handed down by word of
mouth and are being told to-day by his descendants.

The children of Abraham the Seventh took as readily
to humor as to people and social doings. They joined
in at every feast and function with avidity, attended
quilting-bees and dancing parties, went to singing
school, officiated at weddings.* To their Dutch elders
they doubtless seemed very much of a new departure;
and yet the Dutch in them was still there. They were
usually sober and dignified, and went on leading the
life of their ancestors until they grew up.

The language had tied. Abraham the Seventh did
not understand it ; but certain words of it came down
to the children and were used by them unwittingly.
They talked of playing hookey, of snooping about, of
kit and boodle (boedel). When they went out to call
the cattle in the evening it was with the old cobus!
cobus! of the Dutch, though they pronounced it co-
boss! co-boss! and when they gathered berries on the
hillside they put them in a blickie (tin pail). But the
language was dead, and much of the tine old Dutch
life had passed out with it. The Dutch blood was being
diluted by marriages with foreign strains. The great
American melting pot was at work even then, before
the simile was invented and before the people them-
selves knew it.

*"The story-telling-, singing and general joviality of disposi-
tion were derived from the Honeyman side of the house for
the Van Dykes that I knew had none of them. They were
substantial," steady-going people with very little mirth about
them, and I don't think they could either sing or dance— at
least they never did."

D. D. Bunn to the writer in 1888.

72 THE RARITAN.

And what of Abraham the Seventh ! Did he regard
the break in the line with equanimity? Yes; and prob-
ably with satisfaction. Was he fond of his alien wife
and his half-Dutch children ? He certainly was ; and
proud of them into the bargain. Did the energetic
wife and the active nervous children change his dis-
position materially? It is very doubtful. The variety
of life, the volubility of spirits, which he encountered
during his married career, probably pushed him off his
Dutch aplomb at times; 'but we may be sure he re-
turned to it again. He was pure Dutch and probably
lived up to the Family record as near as possible. He
went on with the life on the big farm near that of his
father, with the mills, with the burden, such as it was,,
that his father before him had borne. As he grew
older he drew out of active work, went about a good
deal on horseback, traveling here and there for pleas-
ure or on business matters. It seems that he came
often down to the River, stopping at New Brunswick
and going on to New York.

His photograph, taken after he was seventy-five,
shows a smooth strong face with deep set eyes and a
broad forehead. It is not at all the face of the man
who has lived on a farm, but rather the fine Paul Re-
vere type as pictured by Gilbert Stuart. His grand-
niece, now over eighty, said a few years ago that she
remembered him well in his later years ; and she naively
added that she was always proud as a young girl to-
go about with him because he dressed and looked like
a patrician, carried a gold-headed cane, and everyone
took off his hat to him. He seems to have been highly

ABRAHAM THE SEVENTH. 73

respected by those who knew him and to have lived the
quiet dignified life of his ancestors up to the last. The
poise of the Dutch was not easily jostled. It is perhaps
something of a pity that it was ever shaken in any way.
Yet there were decided compensations in the readjust-
ment.

Abraham the Seventh did not die until 1854, when
he was in his seventy-ninth year. He was a strong
Presbyterian all his life, but did not join the church
until he was seventy. He and his wife are both buried
near their parents in the churchyard at Lamington, and
peace has been with them for many years.

CHAPTER IX

John the Eighth

1S07— 1878

The nervous energy that Sarah of the Scotch-Irish
had brought into the family was early apparent in her
oldest son, John the Eighth. As a boy he was eager
for education, for action, for life, for the world. The
farm fretted him. He would be off and try his for-
tunes with the world. The fond parents were probably
pleased with his aspirations and put no obstacles in his
way. Before he had much of an education for him-
self, aside from reading, he began teaching others;
and before he had much that was worth saying he was
talking in the debating clubs of Middlesex and Somer-
set to admiring if not discriminating audiences. He
had been born on the big farm up on the quiet Laming-
ton, but he was not to stay there.

After a good deal of marking time, and the hesita-
tion that Usually comes to youth when choosing a vo-
cation, he went to New Brunswick and entered the
law office of a supreme court judge to study law. In
due time he was admitted to the bar and began prac-
tising. Almost immediately he attracted attention. In
less than five years he had become Prosecutor of the
Pleas for Middlesex County. This gave him an op-
portunity to display his ability and he quickly seized

[74]

JOHN THE EIGHTH. 75

it. A celebrated case came up. A well-to-do citizen
had murdered the President of the Farmers and Me-
chanics Bank. Murders of that nature were not so
common then as now, nor received so casually by the
public. The whole Atlantic seaboard was talking about
it. The accused was defended by the most prominent
of New York's criminal lawyers; but to no avail. John
the Eighth had the case well in hand, knew his facts,
and put them forth with such unerring logic that the j ury
never hesitated over a verdict of guilty. His work was
greatly applauded. Almost over night the young
Prosecutor was pushed into the full blaze of publicity
and awoke to find himself famous.

Young, handsome, ambitious, and of good report,
why should he not have proved attractive at this time
to a certain tall, fine-looking Mary Dix, some years his
junior? She was not Dutch, or Scotch, or Irish, but
pure Yankee — Xew England Puritan. She descended
from a long line of teachers and preachers, had convic-
tions and beliefs, and a full assortment of nerves. Her
father was a college professor and a celebrated mathe-
matician ;* her mother was a highly intellectual believer
in Calvinism, with the blood of the Dix-Edwards-
Dwight families in her veins to make her positive — -all
told a very "strong-minded," very emphatic, but none
the less very attractive character. So it was that Mary
Dix grew up a well-educated woman, with many Puri-
tan ideas about life and faith and duty which were to
have a mighty influence upon her children. She had

*Dr. Theodore Strong. See Dwight's History of the Strong
Family.

76 THE RARITAN.

perhaps been reared in a hot-house where John the
Eighth had grown up in the open air. There was that
difference in their ideas and their personalities. Per-
haps that is why they cared for one another. At any
rate they were married and started the struggle for life
together.

With a growing law practise John the Eighth began
to hold positions of trust and became prominent in
political life. He was Mayor of New Brunswick for
two terms, became the first president of the Bank of
New Jersey, and in 1847 he was elected to Congress,
where he served for two terms. It was a stirring time,
the country had embarked in a war against Mexico, and
the slavery question was giving rise to stormy debates.
For all the slaves' that his grandfather and great-grand-
father had owned John the Eighth immediately took a
positive stand against slavery. In more than one
scathing speech (some of them afterward published)
he denounced the Polk administration, denounced the
Mexican War as a breach of faith with a weaker repub-
lic, denounced the attempt to spread the slave territory.
For these words he was at the time severely criticised
and even called a traitor. He knew he would be, but
he never ceased to say his say. He was always out-
spoken whether it was politic or not.

There were others who held just as positive views
against slavery and the war as he did — others who af-
terward became of national prominence. One of them
John the Eighth sat beside for two years in Congress
and then and there conceived for him a great and last-
ing respect. He was not a famous man then, but fifteen

JOHN THE EIGHTH. 77

years later all the world knew him as the Great Eman-
cipator— Lincoln.

After Congressional days John the Eighth continued
a strong admirer of the integrity and the ability of
Lincoln, though the country at large was still ignorant
of him. In 1856, at the first Republican Convention,
when after the nomination of General Fremont as
President the name of Lincoln was proposed for Vice-
President and received one hundred and ten votes on
the first ballot, John the Eighth was instantly on his
feet in opposition. Lincoln was one of our greatest
men, he was too great a man to be sacrificed by making
him Vice-President; he was the man to head the ticket
in 1860. This and much more. It was a famous speech
and carried the day.* And the prophecy came true.
Lincoln was chosen to head the ticket in 1860, and John
the Eighth was present at the convention to rejoice at
it.

The times became still more stirring. The Civil War
came in like a black cloud and seemed to darken the
whole land. Lincoln, for all his marvellous patience, was

♦Lincoln's friend YVm. B Archer of Illinois, writing to Lin-
coln from Philadelphia at the time of the convention speaks
of the speech : "He paid you a high compliment and at some
length. It was well done and I regret that his remarks in full
as to yourself were not published. He did you great credit.
Century Magazine vol. 86, p. 189

Lincoln wrote at once to John the Eighth "Allow me to
thank you for your kind notice of me in the Philadelphia Con-
vention. When you meet Judge Dayton, present my respects
and tell him that" I think him a far better man than I for the
position he is in and that I shall support him and Col.^ Fre-
mont most cordially. Present my best respects to Mr?. V. and
believe," etc. Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, p. &

78 THE RARITAN.

sorely tried. John the Eighth could not take the active
part in the war that he perhaps would have preferred.
In 1859 he had been appointed a Justice of the Supreme
Court of New Jersey and was seated upon the bench.
But he rode and drove everywhere through the length
and breadth of the state, in the darkest hours of the
war, talking at every village and cross-road, telling the
people that we could not fail with Lincoln at the helm.
In order to uphold the government credit, then at its
lowest ebb, he told another thing to his Jersey con-
stituency, namely : that he had put every penny he
could beg or borrow or command into government
bonds, so sure was he that the government obligation
would be met. It was a well-known man who was
speaking, a bank president, and a Supreme Court Jus-
tice. His words had some weight in sustaining the
drooping credit of the government.

With the end of the war came the assassination of
Lincoln ; and Mary the Puritan and her children, for
the first and only time, saw tears in the grey eyes of
John the Eighth. It was a dreadful day but it passed
like every other. After the first shock people went on
with their affairs and John the Eighth with them. He
sat in the trial of cases with his colleagues, heard quar-
rels, and fought outside battles as before. But law and
lawyers, politics and politicians, with social and public
life, were growing a little irksome to him. He was
wearing on toward sixty7. His dark hair and beard
that had earned him in early political days the soubri-
quet of "Blackhawk," had become thickly sprinkled
with grey. He was beginning to wonder if what he

JOHX THE EIGHTH. 79

had striven for, and partly attained, was after all worth
while. He was entertaining doubts about achieve-
ments and about himself.

Almost inevitably at fifty or later comes that sum-
ming-up of one's self in little columns of addition and
subtraction, with the resulting balance on the minus
side. We have not profited. Whatever has been done
was not worth the doing, the golden apples of the Hes-
perides, if gathered, have proved mere gilded dusi.
Why did we not do the other thing or go the other
way? Something else would have proved better. And
what is there ahead? Is it too late to mend? I- it
perhaps possible even now to leave the crowd -to
throw all the broken potsherds of the past behind us
and go back once more to the open air?

Every one of years knows that unhappy period of
awakening and that feeling of discontent with onc'^
self and one's work. It was not unique with John the
Eighth, but it was not the less acute. With it came
the longing to get away from the very thought of it. to
get back to the soil. He was only half-Dutch, and the
ambition of the Scotch-Irish in him had held him in
the ranks the greater part of his life: but now the feel
ing of the old dyke-dwellers, for the open country, the
wild, the untrodden, came back to him. He want< 1
turn his back on courts and cities and civilization. \\ ork
in an office had become drudgery and much contact
with humanity had proved disappointing. The broad
acres were calling him and he was perhaps regretting
that he had ever left the farms up on the quiet Lam-
ington to go down to the city and wrangle with people

80 THE RAR1TAN.

over law or government or social order — things that at
best ended in an unsatisfactory compromise.

A preliminary trip to Minnesota in 1867 decided him.
He saw the then new and beautiful valley of the upper
Mississippi, the great forests, the unbroken prairies.
There was still the breath of the wilderness about it. It
was enough. The next spring all the ties in New Jer-
sey were snapped abruptly. Mary the Puritan and her
children, with something of the family boedel, were
entrained, and Minnesota was the goal. There on the
banks of the Mississippi John the Eighth built a huge
house, bought several large tracts of land, began farm-
ing on an extended scale ; and practically took up life
anew.

He was back to the soil at last and for a time quite
happy in his new surroundings. Even Mary the Puritan
was pleased with the new outlook, and the growing
members of the household were enthusiastic over shoot-
ing, fishing, and the Indians. Minnesota at that time
was not only remarkable for its wheat lands, but it was
perhaps the finest game region in the whole country.
The Mississippi Valley swarmed with wild fowl, the
woods held deer and bear, the prairie was alive with
prairie chickens, and not far back were antelope and
buffalo. It was a fair and famous country then.

But there were flies in the ointment. John the
Eighth was interested in the farms and sought to
create an interest in the open-air occupation with his
sons. He delighted to show them how to swing a
scythe, or set a furrow, or sit a horse. He even liked
to boast of his prowess as a youth in cradling grain, in
binding wheat, in driving or riding. No one ever heard

JOHN THE EIGHTH. 81

him so much as suggest that he had been a great trial
lawyer, that he was a most convincing speaker, or that
his judicial opinions were marvels of logic and lucidity.
He never mentioned what might be called his "career" ;
but occasionally he liked it known that he knew about
farming. Unfortunately his family never accepted his
own estimate about that. And his sons never took
kindly to farm work. They were not enthusiastic, and
let it be known early and often that they did not pur-
pose to take up farming as a vocation. This was per-
haps a disappointment to John the Eighth, but he said
nothing. He was as reticent as his Dutch forefathers
about his personal feeling.

Several times while in Minnesota he was diverted
from his interest in the lands. He was asked to ap-
pear as counsel in a number of large cases of state-
wide interest; he was elected to the State Legislature,
where his words commanded respect as his tall straight
figure and grey hair admiration ; he was also appointed
and served as Judge of the Third Judicial District.
But he was no longer anxious for office, or public ap-
pearance, or even success in the eyes of the world. He
had a half-morbid way at times of insisting that he had
failed, but in the same breath he was sure his sons
would succeed. He was done with ambition for him-
self ; but, strange enough, he urged it upon his children.
He desired that they should be famous. He had only
unlatched the door but they would throw it wide open.
Poor John the Eighth! Other parents before him,
time out of mind, had nursed the same delusion.

The unexpected happened. Mary of the Puritan
blood who had clung to him so faithfully, whom he

82 THE RARITAN.

dearly loved and had lived with happily for many
years, was stricken and died. The light went out of
his life then and there. It never came back. He lived
on alone for three years making no complaint, saying
little, and apparently interested in little. The farms
languished or lay idle. Some of the children scattered
and he saw no more of them, his own strong frame be-
gan to fail. He sat on the porch of his great house,
read much ; and between the chapters he watched the
sunlight dancing on the Mississippi and the sweep of
the great water downward to the sea. Often he must
have gone back in memory to that River of his youth,
and to his boyish days when he walked across the
meadows whipping the heads off the daisies with his
cane, or rode along the stream on a new and mettle-
some horse. The world was all before him then and
now it was all behind him. Why had he gone into the
struggle? And why had he not proved a better strug-
gler? If life could be lived over again it would bs on
the ancestral farms, not in the noise and dust of the
city street. Poor John the Eighth ! He had shot his
arrow at the stars and he felt that it had come back to
him merely a spent stick.

He died at Wabasha, Minnesota, in 1878 and he is
buried on the banks of the Mississippi, by the side of
Mary the Puritan. They rest there almost alone. The
last of their descendants moved away years ago. The
big house was sold for a hospital, the tracts of land
passed into the hands of others, and to the people now
living there John the Eighth and his descendants are
little more than a tradition.

CHAPTER X.

The Ninth and the Tenth.

It will require only a short chapter for the children
and the children's children of John the Eighth and
Mary the Puritan. Some of both generations are still
living and what wonderful things they have done, or
expect to do, or have left undone, may be relegated to
the interest or the industry of some future writer, or
perhaps left unwritten. Some of their actions find
record here merely as a passing study in heredity. It
is interesting to note how inevitably the inherited in-
stinct crops out and dictates the action. The old Dutch
blood, though diluted with Scotch-Irish and later on
thinned by Xew England Puritan, still comes to the
front in the children of the Ninth and the Tenth.

The five sons of John the Eighth all inherited a love
of nature, a longing for the open air and the unbroken
country; but not one of them at the start cared to live
on a farm or take up any open-air occupation. The
Dutch philosophy of life, the calm poise, the equable
temper, the large serenity of view, were not theirs.
They were children of Mary the Puritan and inherited
ambitions, theories, feelings, sentiments, nerves. They
all took kindly to books, education, and learning, to
music, literature, and art. All of them went into pro-
fessions. Four of them studied law and were admitted

[88]

84 THE RARITAN.

to the bar ; one of them studied medicine and practised
it successfully in Minnesota and Oregon for over
thirty years. The physician died only a few years ago
leaving one son. Two of the lawyers died before they
were fairly started on their professional careers, leav-
ing each a child. Of the five sons of the Ninth an
Older and a Younger still live.

The family is now widely scattered. Even the dead
are not together. Of the Ninth, one is buried in Min-
nesota, one in Oregon, and one in San Diego. And the
living are far apart. The Older is in California; the
Younger in New Jersey. The tie that held the family
together in Minnesota snapped with the death of Mary
the Puritan. Immediately thereafter both the Older
and the Younger departed and two others left a few
years later. In ten years only those in the graves were
left. The Minnesota incident closed with the death of
John the Eighth and the disintegration of the family.

Of the Ninth both the Older and the Younger are
good exemplars of what humanity cannot be of itself
and what it must be because of its blood-inheritance.
The Older was the oldest of the family and perhaps re-
ceived more of the theories and beliefs of Mary the
Puritan and her professional father than the others.
He grew up in an air of scholarship, was duly sent to
Princeton College, and, after graduation, really be-
came a student in language, literature, science and law.
He practised law both in New Jersey and in Minnesota,
but ill-health finally compelled him to abandon it. He
went to California, took up literature and wrote much.
Later he became interested in water engineering, build-

THE NINTH AND TENTH 85

Ing flumes and dams, and reclaiming desert lands in
Southern California.

He is thought to be a very competent person in many
fields of knowledge, but he has never been willing to
give up his days to any one of them. All his life he
lias hated the office, the street, the city. He has con-
sistently fled from them. Out-of-doors has been his
hobby. In his younger days he was a great hunter and
was known on the Pacific Coast as the "Still Hunter"
from his book of that title. He still likes to watch
game, but shoots no more. And he still hates cities,
civilization and civilized people. Fifteen years ago he
went far out on the Mojave Desert where he brought
a desert river to the surface and flumed it down to
a great ranch which is now an emerald green
with many acres of alfalfa. There he lives in a bar-
baric kingdom of his own, with horses, cattle and dogs,
insisting that he can raise what he can eat and eat what
he can raise and as for the world at large it does not
enter into the calculation.

All of which sounds like a fine defiance of convention
and a return to the simple life ; but the Older will prob-
ably be surprised to read that he is not very original
in this, and that he is, indeed, merely echoing the in-
stincts, the tastes, and the practises of his Dutch ances-
tors who lived the same life by the dykes of Holland
four hundred years ago. His scholarly instincts, which
he still possesses, came to him directly from Mary the
Puritan and her long line of teacher and preacher an-
cestors ; but his love of the open, his content with little,

86 THE RARITAN.

his philosophy of simplicity, came down in a direct line
from the Dutch generations.

The same trail of heredity may be traced in the ac-
tions of the Younger. When the family ties were
broken in Minnesota he returned to New Jersey and be-
came associated with the educational institutions at New
Brunswick where his mathematical grandfather before
him had been a professor for over thirty years. The
grandfather and Mary the Puritan were responsible
for this inclination, and for the forty years of student
life that has followed upon it. Those years have been
spent in study in many departments — art, literature,
history, science, bibliography. And in many activities
— journalism, bookmaking, library* administration,
teaching, university lecturing. The liking for such
things came to him naturally enough and he never
thought to enquire as to its origin until recent years.
He, too, has been following an ancestral trend.

But there has been another inclination in the life of
the Younger that has always fought the bent toward
books and study. That has been none other than the
old Dutch love for the open air and the wilderness.
The years of study have been interrupted at stated in-
tervals by much travel on both hemispheres, by many
returns to the sea, the mountains, the prairies, and the
desert. Nature has proved the most lasting love of all
and though the Younger has not yet broken away from
civilization and gone back to the soil, he keeps threat-
ening to do so and eventually it may come to pass. For
with each succeeding spring the honk of the wild
goose keeps calling to the northern waterways and

THE NINTH AND TENTH. 87

bringing back memories of early Minnesota days, and
the note of the sand-hill crane unfolds the Montana
uplands in their pristine glory when they were known
only to the buffalo and the Sioux Indians. The spell of
the wild grows with the years and becomes more in-
sistent. What after all are all the tales of books and
art compared with nature— nature before the page has
been smeared by the hand of man !

Another inclination that came down to all the
brothers of the Ninth is perhaps worthy of mention. It
is the disposition, so marked in John the Eighth, to re-
gard one's doings as more or less of a failure because
expectations or ideals have not been realized. The
reach of every one of the sons was greater than his
grasp, and disappointment has, in each case, been the
result. John the Eighth had enough Dutch blood in
him to take this with philosophic calmness. It saddened
but did not pervert his view. With the brothers of the
Ninth, however, there developed a nervous morbidity
instead of sadness, and a bleak pessimism instead of
philosophy. The sadness was again an old Dutch strain
that had run through all the generations. They were
a severe and serious people and were gay only sporadi-
cally. But the morbidity and the pessimism came from
the too active mind and the too acute nerves of Mary
the Puritan and her tribe.

As for the members of the Tenth, they are too young
as yet to have done much, but not too young to have
demonstrated the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies ot the
Family. They live scattered along the Pacific slope—
the majority of them in or near new country and they

88 THE RARITAN.

all have the love of the open strongly developed. The
blood of the dyke-dwellers is still with them though
they know it not. And something of the Puritan teach-
ing-preaching spirit of learning is theirs also. Both
strains have, however, been much changed by new ele-
ments appearing on the maternal side. They are not
such striking exemplars of heredity as their fathers and
forefathers. For at least three generations the Family
has been in the melting pot and eventually nothing
recognizable of the old Dutch blood will be left.
*******

And the River which we left some pages back — the
River and its valley where the Family lived and flour-
ished and finally failed ! It too, has changed in
many ways. Its waters are now crossed by many
bridges, clouded by the smoke of many factories, pol-
luted by the waste of many cities. But the tides keep
pushing in and the rains keep flooding out to purify
and clarify the stream. And serenely calm as in the
ancient days it goes down to the sea by bluff and forest,
by bank and meadow, by marsh and shallow bayou.
The sunlight and the moonlight weave and ravel there,
the stars come forth upon its surface, the summer rains
and winter snows fall into it, but slowly and noise-
lessly it moves on down to the sea. What cares the
River about the coming or going of a Family? Not
perhaps so much as the coming and going of a light or
shade upon its rippled face. Nature has no special
solicitude for man. He is merely one of her creatures.
She has equipped him for the struggle. Whether he
wins or loses, whether he comes or goes, is nothing to

THE NINTH AND TENTH. 89

her. She moves on with her processes, as inevitably,
as silently, as serenely, as her creation the River flows
down to the sea.

The River drifts on, drifts on forever, it seems. The
rains come up from the sea in clouds, they fall on the
distant blue hills, and are carried back to the sea again.
The circle is unending, the continuity unbroken, the
supply unexhausted. Counting by human years we
shall not know its ending. But what of the Family? Is
it to pass away and the place thereof to know it no
more? The fine stubborn pride, the sound sense, the
simple philosophy of the Dutch ancestors are these, too,
to perish? Has nature that builded so carefully and
endowed so liberally at last determined to bring to
naught her own creations? Who knows? Worse yet
— who cares? And with that pessimistic sentiment —
for which we shall not blame the ancestors — the tale
ends.

lomasse.

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